Inspiration

“As Eleanor Roosevelt once said, The Future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. So class of 2008, follow your dreams, but don’t forget where you came from.” As I delivered these closing lines to my fellow graduates, a wave of relief washed over me. After nearly fifteen days of agonizing, my speech was finally complete.
When I was told that I would be the salutatorian of the Edgewood High School class of 2008, I was instantly overwhelmed. I wanted to be inspirational yet interesting, reflective yet memorable. But more importantly, I wanted to prove to everyone that I deserved the title of salutatorian.
Writing has always come naturally to me. This speech, however, did not. I faced an admittingly difficult task; saying something meaningful while maintaining the attention of my audience. For weeks, I looked for inspiration everywhere. I poured over movies, books, even songs looking for inspirational quotes. At one point, I even considered starting my speech with a poem. But as graduation came closer, I grew further from completing my speech. There were just so many memories, so many experiences that I did not want to leave out.
One day, while sitting in front of my computer, I finally found my inspiration. I didn’t have an epiphany or receive words of wisdom from a respected teacher; I simply looked back on my own journey through high school. Quotes and lyrics can only help so much. I realized that to write well, you must write what you know. Thus I completed my speech, or so I thought.
On the morning of graduation day, I encountered yet another roadblock. My principal decided to place a time limit on the salutatorian’s speech for the first time since I had been in high school. This meant that I would have to rewrite much of my speech. With only a matter of hours before graduation, I frantically turned to the internet for new inspiration. After reading the speeches that others had wrote, I had a revelation. While others were primping for graduation, I was putting the finishing touches on my speech. It is only is fitting that high school would end this way for me.
Some say that graduation is the first day of the rest of your life. For me, writing this speech truly symbolized that. Through the struggles of writing my speech, I truly realized that writing is my passion.