On May 11, 2022, I sort of cried in front of a room full of people. My high school had a yearly tradition in which seniors had the opportunity to give a speech, called a “chapel,” in front of the entire school and talk about whatever the hell they wanted to. It’s this bizarre, wonderful tradition where almost every senior has the opportunity to articulate, in 15 minutes or less, what their high school experience has taught them.
Up there — and, really, in every moment of your life — you are simultaneously the oldest you’ve ever been and the youngest you’ll ever be again. Senior me saw the world with extraordinary clarity, or at least that’s the impression I gave in my chapel. I remember poring over sentences, trying to streamline every emotional beat in order to communicate as much as possible. Pages worth of ideas were compressed into single sentences, all to articulate concisely how much I had grown as a person. I spent weeks paring down and revising everything I wanted to say into four single-spaced pages. All of that in service of describing how life is easier when you learn to be OK with yourself.
All of this doe-eyed naivete flowed out of me and onto the page, earnest and without a shred of irony. I had no idea if I would be taken seriously, if my ideas and opinions would resonate — and I didn’t care. I was at a point in my life where I thought I was going to be comfortable being vulnerable with other people forever, where I had pushed through an Anchorman-like glass box of emotion and could be comfortable with myself now. I talked about deciding to seek therapy and learning how to be comfortable being sad. Given that I was graduating a month after giving my chapel, I felt that what I had said constituted a sort of happy ending. Four years of high school and 17 years of living, and this chapter ended with me being well-adjusted. It’s cute. And satisfying.
Looking back, it’s easy to see the idea that I would continue to be this way as misguided or sheltered. I had, after all, spent four years in an environment that encouraged public self-reflection and openness. What I didn’t realize at the time was that life continues after turning 18, and it doesn’t always look like attending a New England boarding school. As rewarding as emotional honesty might be, it is much easier to perform a version of yourself than it is to be truly yourself on a day-to-day basis. I did what was easy. I stopped expressing myself as fully as I used to and became much less vulnerable in the process. Of course, what I forgot was that the less you act like yourself, the less you know yourself. Intentionally or not, I had put up walls, and the only way I was able to “be that version of myself” again was to go back.
I’ve revisited my chapel a few times in the years since graduation. There’s a nostalgic quality to it: seeing photos of the day, of friends I do and don’t keep in touch with anymore and that stupid Hawaiian shirt I wore. It was sweet. I don’t know if it’s nostalgia or what, but my chapel is one of the only pieces of writing where I’m able to resist the urge to make minor edits. Even the little embarrassing parts, the awkward transitions and that one joke that nobody laughed at but I thought was pretty funny, I’m OK with preserving.
I remember the grassy, humid and dewy taste of the air; how I felt, the sort of glossy clarity that comes with no worries; and a hell of a lot of (perhaps ill-placed) certainty. The whole day felt like that sensation of your sinuses clearing up after a really bad cold, when you are finally able to taste and smell again, and everything seems more vivid than it was before.
I can remember that clarity, and in rereading it, there was always a glimpse of it. But then, there was also something mournful, as if, in reading my chapel, I was envying this lost version of myself who had the confidence to be vulnerable in front of 500 people. There was always one phrase I thought of: “little did he know.” I met a senior from my high school this year who was seeking advice on giving his chapel, and, when describing my own, I shocked him by saying that, honestly, I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to be that person again.
Some switch flipped for me recently. Not an epiphany, but a simple realization that I had become just a little bit too numb since my chapel. My walls had become too high, and the world less interesting as a result. If the feeling I’d had around my chapel was like getting over a cold and seeing the world through a more vivid lens, a lot of my life since then has felt stuffy and just a little dull. I haven’t been able to taste the air in the same way. The world has not been a constant provider of emotionally vivid and acute experiences. I’ve suspected that I can’t “become that guy” again, that being so raw is almost impossible as an adult. But recently, I decided I wanted to try. Instead of mourning who I used to be, I tried to see my speech as written by someone other than myself. Instead of a time machine, it was a lesson: What can this hubristic 17 year old teach this emotionally hermitic 21 year old?
As it turns out, quite a bit. To put off studying for a midterm, I sat in the library and read my chapel again. For seven or eight minutes, I felt like a 14 year old sitting in the audience listening to an older kid who seemed like he had it all figured out. I was amazed at how little suspension of disbelief this required. I was there, looking up to a guy who seemed so much more emotionally mature, who was operating on a level of self-awareness I couldn’t fathom.
I finished reading and looked up: I was 21 again, and I had an econ exam to study for.
In the weeks since this moment, I have found it hard to live by the vulnerability and emotional honesty that I preached about in my chapel. But what I got out of my most recent reread is that being yourself is worth the effort. I had mistakenly believed that my chapel was a nice thing to reminisce about simply because it’s easy to be a young kid who thinks he has everything figured out. Wouldn’t it be nice if life were that easy, and I could still be that way?
The truth is, it still can be that way if you try. I will never be exactly the same person I was when I wrote my chapel again. But I think it’s possible to get pretty damn close. Hindsight is 20/20 and makes it very easy to laugh at people (including our past selves) who have the confidence and arrogance to say they have it all figured out. But that’s just fear masquerading as strength, weakness coated in irony. Getting back to that mental place, being real and vulnerable all the time: That’s real strength.
Daily Arts Writer Jack Connolly can be reached at jconno@umich.edu.
