If you have not already done so, you are about to graduate, so to all graduates of the Class of 2022, I say TAKE A BOW! You have navigated a time in history that will never look the same again, and done it while traversing one of the most difficult times of anyone’s life… high school! You truly deserve a medal for all you have endured, but you get something even more important: your high school diploma.

So, let’s review: In March of 2020, right when you were probably just starting to feel like you were getting your bearings and thinking, “Hey, high school is not that bad,” what happened? Your whole world gets turned upside down, and you get sent home to stay inside and stare at a computer all day to complete your classwork. Some of you had strong internet and a good computer at home, and some of you did not. But you prevailed.

You were not able to see friends. You were not able to participate in your favorite sport or activity. If you went out and about, you had to wear a mask — maybe not a bad thing for those who were suffering the dreaded teenage scourge of acne! Basically, the only fun parts of high school got taken away. But you survived, with the hope that once school began in the fall, things might be normal again.

But then fall came, and everything was the same. Still at home. Still no activities. Still no friends. No dances, no parties, no football games. Politically, the world was divided. Medically, the world was unsure, overwhelmed and a bit frightened. Economically, the world was completely off balance. Maybe your own family was suffering the consequences of one or all of these things. Parents lost their jobs; grandparents lost their lives. Everything seemed very uncertain, but you prevailed. As your junior year progressed, you found a rhythm and stayed on course with a determination to make it through high school in the best way you could. Towards the end of the school year, things started to open up again. It was time to resume the normal angst of high school, but it was combined with new angst…mask or don’t mask? Activity or no activity. And while you were relieved of one of the more difficult rights of high school passage — standardized testing for college admissions — you still had to get ready for application season, which would begin as soon as school resumed in fall.

Your senior year began with a new sense of hope: people were not getting sick as much, parents were getting back to work, maybe even your own part-time job had resumed. Activities re-opened, sports were able to be played, life was starting to feel normal again, when yet another surge came along. As you were pounding through your senior classes and wading through a sea of college applications, you might have started to wonder if you would even be able to go away to college and wondered what was the point of it all. But you persisted and you prevailed. You got through your classes. You got those applications done. You are graduating from high school in one of the most unique times of American history, and for that you can be immensely proud.

This article today may sound more like a graduation speech than my normal advice and information, but I could not let this time pass without wishing my most sincere CONGRATULATIONS to the Class of 2022 for all you have overcome.

Maryanne Hogan is an Independent College Counselor. For more information or to make an appointment, see her website: Thecollegeauntie.com.