I sat in my folding chair in the sea of identical gowns and listened to storm after storm after storm, and I did the math of how many names were left before mine, and I felt the loneliness climb up my throat.

When they finally called my name, I stood, and I walked.

I climbed the stairs and crossed the stage and took the leather folder from the principal and shook the hand and moved the tassel, doing all of it on legs that did not quite feel like mine, trying with everything I had not to cry in front of the whole town.

And the applause that met my name was the polite kind.