One Step Closer

Miss TigerBlog first met her friend Wiki (you can call her "Victoria") back when they were both three years old.

That was when Wiki and her family first moved into the next house. TB has told you this story before, but since odds are really good you don't remember, he'll give you the basics again.

Wiki and her brother spent about three days looking across to the next yard, where very young MTB and very young TigerBlog Jr. would play on the swingset. Eventually Wiki made her way over, and that was that.

The two girls were basically inseparable after that. And there are pictures of the two of them at the bus stop on the first day of school every year, including this past year, when both were seniors in high school and neither took the bus.

TigerBlog has a picture of them when they were maybe four years old each, dressed up in whatever costumes they used to dress up in, arms around each other. And now to that he can add another picture of the two of them, dressed up in different costumes, again arms around each other.

This time, the costumes were caps and gowns, and the setting was not the back yard or the play room but instead on the high school football field, a few minutes after graduation had ended last week.

TigerBlog wasn't sure exactly what level of sentimentality he should bring with him to the ceremony. On the one hand, it was high school graduation, a milestone in anyone's life. And, as with any other high school graduation, there longtime friends who were vowing to stay in touch, knowing full well they wouldn't, despite the best intentions. This applied to graduates, and their parents.

So yeah, it was sentimental.

On the other hand, what comes next for MTB is incredibly exciting.

MTB will be a member of the Princeton Class of 2022. Each remaining step of her high school career once she got her acceptance email in December has been leading up to the day when she would graduate and move on to the next step.

As with every incoming freshman, MTB has been filling out forms, getting her Princeton email, looking at academic offerings and generally taking it all in as she gets ready for the big move to Princeton.

For TigerBlog, it's all been an amazing look at a side of the University that he hasn't seen before. TB has been on this campus for nearly three full decades, and all of that time has been spent watching other people's kids go to school here. When it's his own? It's a lot different.

It's been a fascinating look at the admissions process and now the orientation process. TigerBlog has a million questions about how it actually works, and he's been watching how it all unfolds.

Beyond that, there's just an enormous sense of pride in knowing that his daughter will be here. TB is positive that anyone who has a child who is coming here feels the exact same way.

TigerBlog would have been proud of her no matter where she went. He's certainly proud of TigerBlog Jr., who has had a great experience at Sacred Heart and who has grown so much in his first three years there.

Maybe, though, TB is more in tune with the whole Princeton experience, given how much time he has spent here and how he's seen how much this place has done for so many people.

So did that actually make the high school graduation less meaningful?

TB thought it would. He can't really remember anything about his own high school graduation, and TBJ's graduation doesn't really stand out much either.

He parked in a neighborhood across the street from the school and had to walk across the field hockey and girls' lacrosse field on his way to the football field for the ceremony. As he did, he thought back to all the times he'd seen her play there in her four years and realized that there would be no more of those games there.

When the ceremony ended, everyone gathered on the field. That's where TB took the picture of MTB and Wiki.

There were others there too though. All of MTB's friends. They'd literally grown up together, been in classes together, played sports together. And now they were scattering.

Yes. The whole thing did get TigerBlog to be a little nostalgic.

But throughout it all, his mind kept, well, going back to Nassau Hall, and where he hopes to see MTB graduate next time. When that day comes (not to jinx anything), it will be especially emotional for TigerBlog. He can guarantee that.

In the meantime, MTB is done with high school. She did an incredible job in her four years there; she had to if she got into Princeton. She has grown considerably as a student, athlete and person.

And now she's coming to Princeton.

TigerBlog's advice to her now?

Dream the biggest dreams you can possibly dream.

You're coming to a place that can make them all come true.