It’s graduation day. There’s an exciting, but sad energy in the house as everyone wakes up from the long night of anticipation before. For the past two years, I have thought about our last day together. It’s an unspoken thought, one where time defines the end of an era full of friendship and connection. This is the last day all of us wake up in the same home, our home, together. 

Growing up, I was always the big brother. The role model. The first to experience everything. Over the past two years that changed. I became the younger friend, the last one to turn 21, the one who still has another year before graduating. I was the one listening to job interviews and post-grad plans, watching my friends take the next step while I remained on the edge of the unknown. It was humbling to shift from the one others looked up to, to the one looking ahead at others’ lives unfolding.            

As I stood beside my roommates and their families, pride and sadness pulled in opposite directions. I wasn’t graduating yet. I felt the sting of not being part of it. However, I was also the proudest friend in the world. I witnessed all the hardships, the long nights studying, and the stressful moments wondering about the future. I internalized it all, preparing myself for my own turn. In a way, their present was a rehearsal for my future. 

After the ceremony, we celebrated. We gathered at the bar, music booming, smiles wide, a live band playing just loud enough to drown out any final thoughts of goodbye. I’m standing next to all of them, sipping on a classic He’s Not Here cup. They pass around a victory cigar, a legendary celebratory symbol for a college male. They offered me a hit of the cigar. I smiled and shook my head, a quiet pride swelling in my chest. “My cigar will come,” I thought.“This is their moment.”

For most of my life, I’ve seen myself as a leader, a big brother by nature. But these last two years were different. Little brothers follow. They watch, support, and grow in the shadows of the ones who go before them. Until one day, those older brothers leave. And when they do, the house feels a little quieter. Not just in sound, but in presence. In the absence of shared routines, inside jokes, and the comforting chaos of living life side by side. I’ve realized that being the little brother doesn’t make me any less of a leader; it just means my role is to learn before I lead, to cheer before I step up. These moments of following aren’t setbacks, they’re the moments that quietly shape who I am becoming. 

I wonder now if this is how my brother felt at my high school graduation or the day he opened the door to my bedroom and I wasn’t there anymore. Maybe he felt the same ache of pride and distance, the same quiet passing of a season. And maybe that’s the beauty of these moments. We feel them twice -  once when we watch someone leave, and again when it’s our turn to go. It’s between holding on and letting go, that we grow the most. Now is the time for me to let go. And when my moment comes, I’ll be ready to light my own cigar.