Separation anxiety set in for most of us a couple of months ago. That week before Spring Break when all we wanted to do was get away from the job hunting; the constant mailbox checking for grad school acceptances and rejections; that moment when you get to the top of a rollercoaster and realize that the next few seconds will be frightening, exhilarating, and over before you have time to register any of it. Friends started pulling away, acquaintances tried to get closer, everyone was getting on your nerves, and all you could think about was how much you were going to miss them.

When we arrived at Duke, we walked around looking up at everything in awe. The chapel towering over West Campus, the sun breaking through Gothic arches, upperclassman who knew that the Robertson bus doesn’t take you to East Campus but rather Chapel Hill. As we have been preparing to leave, we were given the chance to see Duke from the top of our chapel, looking down on everything with nostalgic familiarity—inspecting the tiny people that bring Duke to life, trying to imagine the countless buses we squeezed to get on, and the hours spent talking to friends on the chapel steps.

We are a community diverse in thought and background: the kind of terrain that is never easy to navigate. Take it from my own experience, as I have spent my whole life learning to walk through such terrains—through countries, and communities, and schools that are divided and diverse and marked by difference—so I know how challenging and uncomfortable and sometimes exhausting that process can be—but I also know that it is remarkably rewarding, and powerful, but most of all, necessary.

I know that graduation speeches are notorious for trying to impart grand messages on a sea of overwhelmed and overheated people, but since this is the first speech of the morning, I decided to go ahead and squeeze one in anyway. As we receive our prestigious Duke degrees this morning, I can’t help but be reminded of how small the world continues to get for the educated and elite, while others, both at home and abroad, are forgotten or left behind. Be they Palestinian refugees, trafficked children in Cambodia, or the residents of the lower 9th ward in New Orleans—their voices are not as loud or powerful or influential as ours, so let’s not forget to listen for them. None of us were born into a balanced and equitable world. None of our children will be born into such a world either.

But what I ask you to remember is that while we are the lucky ones, we’re all in this together. As individuals, as a university, as a community, let us embrace this challenge of becoming invested in each other’s security and well-being. Indeed, this is the challenge of the global era and I can’t think of a better place to start than at Duke, with Dukies—that awkward and impressive breed of intellect, energy, innovation, and let’s face it, a little bit of southern charm. If you Northerners have a hard time shaking off your Southern inflections when you go home, try going back to Europe and pulling out a “y’all” at your high school reunion.

It’s not just Duke’s Southern charms, becoming a Dukie means that we share a motivation and desire to push ourselves that much further, growing to expect a little more from our potential everyday. While we are struggling with letting go of so many things, let’s not forget that we still have this intensity and drive to hold onto and push us towards success in our future lives.

* * *

Just watching people these past few weeks, I’ve noticed how much tighter you hug people when you’re not sure when you’ll see them again. Let’s face it, it hasn’t been easy getting to this day. It hasn’t always been easy for the past twenty-plus years and it hasn’t been easy the past few weeks.

As students we have been in the graduation daze from the second we put our robes on this morning, if not before: looking at everything around us from buildings to faces with heightened senses, hoping to memorize everything in the hours we have left, forgetting that we have already done so with each day we spent here. We look into our friends’ faces and we see ourselves. We see our hopefulness, our excitement, our anticipation, and how much we’ve grown since arriving here a few short years ago. We can barely articulate how we feel but its ok because we know and that’s enough.

Our parents have been waiting and dreading this moment since we were born. When we left for college, they knew that we were still kids at heart. Now they look at the young men and women we’ve become and find themselves as speechless as we are. For lack of words, just turn around and blow your parents a kiss, give them a wave; it’s Mother’s Day after all, and they know the gratitude and love that these simple gestures mean today.

Our families held us up when we were learning to walk, while we were learning to become adults, and amidst the uncertainties of moving on, they once again become our ground and the arms that keep us steady. The best friends we’ve made have become our family too and they will be with us through this uncertainty and others.

For now, savor the goodbyes and welcome the new beginnings and remember that four years ago, we were doing the same exact thing—and everything has turned out fine.