When you’ve been capturing graduation ceremonies for the Democrat for more than two decades, you know exactly what to expect even before you arrive at commencement.

Giddy students walking a razor fine edge between the worlds they’ve always known, and the real world will leave you laughing as they ham it up for the camera, reminding you there’s still plenty of kid left in all of them. 

You’ll spot kids who spent their high school years hiding away from their peers quietly tucking themselves into corners amidst the chaos of getting ready. When you train your lens on them, they’ll shrink back like a paper towel hit with a stream of water. 

Sometimes you’ll be able to coax a small smile. When you can’t, you’ll take the hint and move on, leaving them to watch the clock, moving at a snail’s pace toward their escape.

Scooting in and out of the processional, capturing these last moments of childhood, you’ll feel every inch your age.

You can’t believe you were this young once. Your back hurts. Your feet hurt. 

And yet, you can still sense the rough polyester of the white gown on your own skin, the beads of sweat gathering beneath the mortarboard bobby-pinned to your hair and your best friend’s arm looped in yours as you stand on the stage looking out over the gymnasium where you first learned to dribble a basketball and bump a volleyball. 

You can’t believe those memories were built more than two decades ago. 

You can’t believe you’ve been capturing other students’ memories for more than two decades. 

When you listen to administrators delivering speeches calling on graduates to remember where they came from, you’ll smile and shake your head. 

The graduates may not believe it now, but in time, those hours spent learning to calculate percentages will turn up when they sit down to sign the mortgage papers. The lab reports they didn’t want to write will guide them through a set of directions without burning down the house.

What no one tells them from the podium is what else they're carrying out the door: that best friend’s arm looped through yours as you walk across that gym floor one last time.