We may not be looking out at a committee, hopeful for financial support, but we are looking out at our own lives, and out at a world that is in desperate need of help.

Maybe we share something with the graduate even when it’s not us, and maybe there are takeaways from those speeches that speak to us, too.

For those of you who subscribe to the belief that less is more, you will probably think the following sounds a little crazy:

I have an entire drawer dedicated to blue jeans.

As a society, we need to realize that what we are demanding of our children is excessive and unsustainable, and as parents we need to let our children know that we love them for all of their unique and wonderful qualities, unattached to and devoid of any accomplishments.

All of sudden, the control I once felt slips away.

How can we feel happy when there is so much strife in this world? How do we come to terms with the fact that the human experience can be so vastly different?

We were meeting a man I met online in the basement of a church – oh, and we were to bring knives. Clearly parenting skills at their finest.

What’s all this fuss about the home during the holidays? If you ask me, it is just one more “thing” on my very long to-do list.

A good friend let me in on a secret the other day.

It is only natural to have high expectations and hopes for our children; we all want them to be successful. But it is important that we never lose sight of those feelings we experienced at their birth - a wonder and love of being.

Although I am sad to wave so long to the season of flip flops and sundresses, this year I welcome September with open arms, because I can. Because sometime this past summer, I found an appreciation for the predictable, and a gratitude for the present.

Those perfect pictures of gorgeous people doing amazing things tell only a part of a story. And seeing only the highlights, only the most flattering pictures, can leave us all feeling less-than and unworthy.

It makes sense that the pandemic has negatively affected our level of happiness, but there was a problem long before the virus. There is a happiness crisis in our culture, and cause for the growing concern.

Today, I had one of those awkward moments made more awkward by the protocols of the last year. I was saying hello to a friend, and I hesitated – do I go in for a hug?

Our language is jam-packed with clichés and idioms that we use without giving them much thought at all. But maybe we shouldn’t throw out the baby with the bathwater; maybe clichés are a bit of a double-edged sword? Perhaps sometimes a cliché is just the ticket to get our point across. And while we search for novel ways to replace a cliché, we are really just pointlessly attempting to reinvent the wheel.

In celebration of Mother’s Day, may I present the toast I gave to my mom, Mary Lynch, on the occasion of her 80th birthday.