Dear Graduates,

First of all, let me say how no words can alleviate the pain you may feel right now. It is real, it is raw, and it is perfectly understandable.

Of all the worries that you and your parents have had over the span of your life, having your senior year disrupted by a global pandemic was never a blip on anyone’s radar. In fact, if you’d written a fictional English essay about this just two months ago, your classmates may have laughed because it sounds far-fetched. Yet here we are, dealing with a reality that is stranger than fiction.

My heart breaks for you because my daughter is a high school junior. It’s easy for me to imagine how we’d feel in your position. In short, you’ve been sucker-punched, hit by a curve ball out of left field, and no plan B can compensate for how cheated you may feel to lose the final 2 months of your high school career.

Years ago, I sat in on a conversation between two young widows. One woman had just lost her husband, and her friend – years ahead in her grief journey – shared what another young widow once told her.

“When you grieve,” she explained, “you’ll often grieve in advance. You’ll feel sad because of what would normally happen this Saturday, yet won’t happen now because he’s gone.”

In many ways, this principle applies to you. You’re grieving your senior year – and every highly anticipated milestone. You’re mourning what was supposed to happen but no longer will: prom, awards day, senior banquet, senior trip, championships, banquets, senior skip day, college T-shirt day, touring your elementary school in your cap and gown, and – of course – walking across the stage at a May graduation.

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I’ve never been one who readily embraces change.

If anything, I like to stick to the plan, stay focused, and make it work.

But right now, we’re all changing plans. We’re canceling, re-prioritizing, and uniting to save lives in a global pandemic. What sounds like a plot out of a grossly exaggerated Hollywood movie is shutting down our society, and the strangest part is, we have no prior experiences that even halfway prepared us for this predicament physically, mentally, emotionally, or financially.

Nobody knows what tomorrow will bring – much less next month or next year. And while I spent the first few days of this crisis panic shopping and spending hours online to read articles and stay informed, I quickly concluded that I don’t want to live through this history-making event feeling constantly panicked, scared, and anxious.

I don’t want to be so glued to the news that I miss this extra time with my family as we hunker down and help flatten the curve of the COVID-19.

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Everyone is worried about teenage girls today – and with good reason.

In short, they are struggling. From epidemic levels of anxiety, depression, and loneliness…to a mental health crisis that’s starting younger and younger…to a suicide rate that’s hit a 40-year peak…to the stress of technology and a promiscuous culture, girls face challenges and trials that pain us and haunt us as they flash across headline news.

Like teenage boys, they’re growing up in a fishbowl. They’re scared to death to fail because perfection is the bar. They juggle insane workloads and intense pressures to succeed, and they feel anxiety over realities like our country’s current quarantine, which has quickly ushered in a new era of fear. They’re the first generation of teenagers to be more stressed than their parents.

Today’s girls feel overwhelmed emotionally – yet unsure how to talk about it. They get bombarded by images that make them feel inadequate, and rarely do they get downtime because technology and social media create an intoxicating pull to constantly connect with friends.

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