CONGRATULATIONS

This is entirely a celebration for submitting your early college applications!

There aren't words enough to express how proud I am of you all... that's really all I have to say. I wrote this poem about this strange city we call a hometown a long time ago, and I think it's fitting to share it now: 

When everyone wanted to live in New York City, I wanted to move to Jersey.

You get the leftover energy, the kind that has ruminated in the lights before landing on your doorstep
The rejected music, filled with teenage love, younger-sibling-syndrome lust, and get-me-out-of-here longing
You get the is-a-hometown-a-cage late night talks and the can-you-love-a-cage shower thoughts
The thrill of living on the brink of something intangibly large
And the comfort of knowing you belong to something infinitely small

When the wind blows, you can almost smell the lost dreams drifting over from the city
And if you wake early enough, you can hear the carefully controlled chaos of morning meeting rush hour
You get to keep all your yesterdays and when-I-was-younger glory days inside a 200 square mile pandora’s box
You get built in eleutheromania, the need for freedom forcing its way into the corners of every silent conversation
You get stars over your head (if you remember to look) and endless skies.

And when you leave, you can use your hometown as a yardstick to measure your success
The roads serve as mile markers for how far you’ve come, painting inspirational words on the street signs and leaving every single traffic light green just for you
The sound of the third step up the stairs welcomes you home, and the neighbors atrocious blue car still spontaneously backfires
There’s this feeling you can never quite shake that despite the triumphs and tragedies and transformations and tribulations, despite the mounting nostalgia and the future generation sitting in your old high school, despite the reputations you never quite upheld and that one boy who’s perpetually trying to “make it as a rapper”

Despite the countless ways that you have changed, this place feels the same.

TL;DR: in ten years, I'm going to see you on the television and think to myself, oh. I knew them once. I might be surprised that it's happened so soon, or that it's happened in this way, but I won't be surprised to see your face up there. I always knew one of us would make it, and I'll be proud it's you. Today, you finished taking the first step to get there. And I know that for the next six months, you'll run yourself nervous in anticipation, but I hope that you know how enamored I am to know you, every single day.