editorial: opinions that matter
The Wendy City
Sugar-Coated
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| Wendy Atterberry |
I think Americans sugarcoat things too much - cereal, sodas, fruit roll-ups, life! Take graduation ceremonies as an example. When I did a Google search of "graduation keynote speeches + exciting journey," I got over 63,000 matches. Conversely, when I searched "graduation keynote speeches + it's all downhill from here," I found only 981 matches, which seems a grave misrepresentation if you ask me.
Now, I realize graduations are a time of celebration and no one wants to be too grave while yukking it up, but aren't they also sort of a send-off -- a kind of formal acknowledgment that the students who're moving on into the real world are adequately prepared for its tribulations and mindless tedium? And isn't part of that readiness an understanding that the "journeys" that lie ahead are nothing like the drunken, stoned, Dave Matthews-filled, food-orgy road trips of yesterday -- that in fact, the only exciting thing about the real world, with its endless stream of bills, paperwork, and invasive routine medical tests, is the much-too-occasional wardrobe malfunction?
"Oh, the places you'll go!!" exclaimed the keynote speaker cheerfully at my sister's college graduation last month in Kirksville Missouri, quoting the beloved Dr. Seuss.
It was a hot evening and the students on stage, dressed in various versions of inappropriateness, as if they half-expected Paris Hilton to MC the outside world awaiting them, looked bright-eyed and eager, like passengers on a Royal Caribbean Cruise liner, rather than suckers leaving the best years of their life behind them.
"Well, they're not going to Whoville, I'll tell you that," I muttered under my breath to my aunt sitting next to me.
More likely, half of them will end up in their parents basement, blowing smoke through dryer-sheet-filled toilet paper rolls, watching QVC in snowy reception, and applying for assistant manager positions at every Country Kitchen, TGI Fridays, and Steak-n-Shake in a 15-mile radius. And the other half -- the ones from small Missouri towns, like Chillicothe and Burlington Junction, will go straight into their starter marriages -- right after traditional church weddings and pit-stop honeymoons in Branson or Kansas City or Chicago, where they'll stay at the Days Inn on Lincoln, shop at Old Navy on State, and eat dinners at Panda Express for the "culture." No one will think to tell them they've got other options, because they're too busy quoting nursery rhymes and painting life to be one big fat, fucking, fun-filled journey to actually lend some real advice, like Go to Ben Pau, instead! and Those Gaucho pants really do make your ass look big!
We do a disservice to our graduates when we paint their futures rose-colored, instead of telling them like it really is: that the killer hangovers plaguing their special day will be the best ones they'll ever feel again, that over the next few years, their hair will thin, while their waist-lines thicken, work-life will slowly suck their souls and eat all fucking-around time, and whatever's leftover will be consumed by nagging in-laws, parents too eager for grandchildren, loan and bill-collectors hungry for their every paycheck, and the unstoppable procreation of Britney Spears and Kevin Federline.
It doesn't have to be that way, of course. We're all in charge of paving our paths and creating our own life journeys, but with pressure in almost every arena of our lives from mass consumer culture pushing us in one particular direction, it can be hard to remember we have a choice - that life's formula isn't necessarily graduation + job + marriage + mortgage + kids + retirement = death in a over-air-conditioned condo in Florida while doing the Times Crossword Puzzle and watching Bob Barker turn orange.
I suppose it's possible that I'm under-estimating those kids I saw at my sister's graduation last month. Maybe they really will grow up to be perfectly happy and pleasant and very well-adjusted (which sounds just about as interesting as a Jennifer Aniston movie). But, if I'm right - and they all end up as neurotic and sugar-free as the rest of us, no worries - I just did a Google search of "artificial sweeteners for your life," and got over 627,000 matches.