matriculation

They are fresh-faced and honest, mostly,
honorable, we like to think (though they would
have trouble defining just what that might mean
in real-world terms), and they are about to enter
a universe that is part friend, part enemy, part mystery
and wholly sobering, at some points, at least.
They will leave behind much less than they
will grow to meet, but, as they do, what they’ve
recently left will prove to shape them more than they
can imagine and more than anything they encounter
down the road.

They will smile and weep and toss their hats into
the air, for they have been freed, they think. It is
only later that they will realize that their freedom, a
freedom,
is not presented to them, but, freedom, if it is that
that they choose (and that which they should choose),
is earned, though never really understood, nor ever really
appreciated until later, though in their impatience they
will try to understand it now, right now, and, more,
to celebrate it.

They are to be welcomed, yes, but not dispirited, even
for their naivete, or, better, least for that, for the
value is in the journey, as they say, and not
the destination. And they are, at the very least, willing to embark on
the trip. Wish them well.
Wish them Godspeed.