Allie Pleiter on Life Advice

I bought my daughter a copy of “I Just Graduated, Now What?” as we celebrated her college commencement last month.  These days, the media is filled with life advice for recent grads.  As my son will be donning the cap and gown for his high school graduation this weekend, it’s been on my mind.

My favorite version of this game is “What would you tell your younger self?”  So, in the spirit of graduates everywhere, here is my list of five things I would tell 18-year old Allie if I had the chance:

Ignore the statistics
While it’s good to know the likelihood of something, stats aren’t certainties.  I’ve spent a lifetime bucking the odds—for good or bad—and that’s been 90% of what made life interesting.  Like The Magic School Bus’s Miss Frizzle always said, “Rarely is a long, long, way from never!”

Life doesn’t work like high school or college
Life doesn’t hand out A’s for effort.  Output matters, so while you should embrace the process, get in the habit of focusing on the end game.  Also, what was popular and powerful in high school almost never is in real life.

Marry the nerd
The dreamy guy you think you want now probably won’t turn out to be a decent life partner.  The quiet, studious guy who takes some effort to get to know?  That’s the dependable husband and father that will bloom into a man of amazing character down the road.

Start somewhere
So much of success is digging your heels in and taking the first small step.  Often the plan we lay out at the beginning gets changed.  Almost everyone pays their dues and overnight successes never really are overnight.  A long career in the right direction wins over the hot shot to stardom every time.  Don't wait for the perfect dream job to land in your lap—get as close as you can and work really hard, and the rest will come.

You won’t always look this way
I was gawky in high school.  While I consider myself a well-polished woman now, I sure didn’t start out that way.  Style is something we grow into, confidence can only be earned (or occasionally borrowed).   Conversely, that slim figure I boasted as a young woman is pretty much long gone and while I could wear anything I wanted in my 20’s, now I dress to hide my flaws.  And buy a lot of concealer.

What about you? What advice would you give our high school or college self?

Allie Pleiter on Graduation Season

It’s graduation season at the Pleiter house.  Back when we were planning our family, we thought ourselves oh-so-clever to have our two children four years apart (that was back when we were young and foolish enough to think one can plan such things…).  I remember thinking how nice it would be to get to tackle one college tuition at a time.

It’s worked out that way…sort of.

Mandy & I hamming it up at her high school graduation

I didn’t foresee having to graduate both children—one from college and one from high school—within weeks of each other in different parts of the country.  I didn’t foresee double sets of announcements, celebrations, gifts, and logistics.  We didn’t realize the final year’s tuition payment for one child would still fall in the same year as the first year’s tuition payment for the second child—ouch!

That’s parenthood—you never see most of it coming.

With all the hassles, I am still deeply grateful and aware that these are happy days.  My children have accomplished great things—some of them under very difficult circumstances.  I am full of wonder at launching them into their new lives.  And, quite frankly, I’m pretty excited at the prospect of regular visits to Charleston, South Carolina and Austin, Texas—in winter, that is.  Unloading my son into a Texas dorm room in August?  Not so much.

Benchmarks are worth celebrating.  These are watersheds in my children’s lives, and I’m happy for them.  They are becoming the most amazing people right in front of me.  So far, I have no fear of the empty nest—but I realize I may eat those words.

What about you?  How many of you are launching children into new seasons of their lives?  Graduations, marriages, new jobs?  Let’s celebrate together!

Graduation Season

Congratulations graduates!

Hi All! Charlotte Carter here.

My husband and I recently journeyed to Northern California to celebrate the high school graduation of our oldest granddaughter Rachel and her cousin Josh. What an important milestone for those two young people and their 140 classmates. And Rachel, like me years ago, was really ready to move on to a new phase of her life.

During the ceremony I was struck by how many ‘graduations’ or ‘milestones’ the young people in the class of 2011 will experience in their lifetimes.

Hopefully, college graduation will be the next biggie. Then comes the first job out of school (and hopes for an economy that is thriving with opportunities).

Milestones to be celebrated keep on coming in both personal and professional lives – the first promotion and moving up the career ladder, engagement, wedding, the extraordinary birth of the first child (and all the subsequent children).

There seems to be no end to the days we mark as special in our memories: the first apartment, the first house, the first grandchild.

(For an author, the sale of the first book is a GIGANTIC milestone!)

Each of these steps involve a NEW BEGINNING, and maybe that’s what we ought to call them instead of a graduation or even a milestone.

So my heartfelt congratulations to Rachel and Josh for their high school graduation and my sincere wish that they will experience many exciting and wonderful NEW BEGINNINGS in the years to come.

Love, Grandma Char.....

What New Beginning do you remember most clearly? What New Beginning are you looking forward to in the near future?

Books that leave you smiling -
Big Sky Reunion, available now -
Big Sky Family, 11/2011 -
New Beginnings, Guideposts Books, 12/2011 -
www.CharlotteCarter.com