Soul Snacks 🎓

5 minute read

Dear Snackers,

Last week I was invited to give the commencement speech at my Alma Mater, which many of you expressed interest in reading. Pasted below are my best words of wisdom for our future! Let’s hope I didn’t fuck it up. When you get to the end, the phrase “All-A-Taut-O” was our school’s motto, and it is latin for “Ship Shape”.

-Caitlin

Thank you so much for having me, thank you to the administrators and teachers, some of whom were here when I was, for pulling me back into the Tabor Community in such a special way. Thank you to my family, and my daughter Faye, who is here today and my three best friends from Tabor who are also here today to see me - you’ve made lifelong friends, guys. 

I’ll tell you what, I never get sick of using a microphone. You know how when you’re a kid and you’re dying for a chance to use a microphone, for the love of God, but you never really get to use a microphone because no one wants to hear you that loudly? Well the novelty has not worn off for me. Something about voice amplification is just so electric. And this is also why I tend to wonder why I am asked to speak at events, like seriously, you really want me? You know I still get excited to use a microphone right? That’s what level I’m at here. Did someone drop out before me? No? Fine. Let’s do it. Do I get to use the microphone? Great. I’m in. 

In all seriousness, it is my honor to address the class of 2025 at Tabor Academy. In a lot of ways it is hard to believe it has been 24 years since I sat where you all sit in this moment…sad to leave behind a place that was truly a second home to me, but also ready to spread my wings and find out what college was all about - it’s freaking awesome, by the way - but in most ways, especially when I really think back on my life and the fact that I wrote this speech in 16 point font, it feels like it long time ago. Today, as older people tend to do with younger people, I want to tell you a little about what I’ve learned along the way, and since I am in the business of social media, I thought it might be sort of “on brand” for me, if you will, to present these things to you as my top life hacks. 

• Life Hack #1 - how to marry someone that remains eternally hot, and this is most important one, so that is why I am giving it to you first, so listen up. In order to marry the hottest person in the world, you have to find someone who can 1) make you laugh, and 2) that you respect on such a deep level that they make you want to be a better version of yourself every day, and I can guarantee you, that if you can find a person who has both of those qualities, that they will be more attractive to you than anyone else in the world, forever. I met my husband in college and we have now been together for approximately 75 years, and I’ll tell you what: when you have spent that many years with someone, there are going to be things about a person that are going to start to drive you crazy, but when you respect that person deeply, it’s going to be infinitely easier for you to choose your battles. My husband, for instance, is a very loud, mouth-breathing sleeper, and he often startles me in the middle of the night…it goes like this: we will be asleep and his mouth will be closed and then all of a sudden a forced, heavy breath will make it’s way through his closed lips and it sounds like he is very loudly whispering the word “poo”. Poo. It scares the hell out of me and it happens multiple times a night and I could choose to make a big deal about that with him, but I don’t because he is a wonderful man who always comes home from work with energy and love for our family after waking up before 5am most mornings and working 12 hour days, so I let the poo whispering slide. And by the way, someone can not be hot for life, just by being hot. To be hot for life it has to be because they are loyal or kind or have an indomitable work ethic or an unfailingly positive outlook or are always levelheaded, whatever the reasons are for you when you choose your person, make sure they are real and deep because the person you decide to do life with, to me, is inarguably the most important decision you will ever make. 

• Life Hack #2 - How to never win an argument. A more simple way of putting this to always remember there are 2 sides to every story. This is an important one because in life you are going to hear about something someone did or said, or you are going to see headlines in the media that are going to detonate an immediate emotional response from you, which is intended, because things like gossip and headlines and politics are designed to create bias because someone is usually benefitting off of your bias, but when our minds are truly open, we often come to learn that two things can absolutely be true at the same time, for instance, both the peanut butter and jelly and the Italian Combo are the best sandwiches ever, it just depends on the day, which means that we do not have to feel the need to be right or absolute in our thinking, which is so incredibly freeing. You can have a feeling or a thought or opinion and you can accept that someone else might have a different feeling or thought or opinion, and when you don’t feel the need to be right, that is where you find true inner peace. And this is going to be incredibly hard to do with some people, I’m definitely still working at it, and it takes an insane amount of inner strength to just say to someone “I accept that you have a different understanding this, and I would rather not argue about it,” but I can pretty much guarantee you if you are able to check your ego and relinquish the need to win an argument, you will be winning in life. It can also save you from what could potentially end up as a holiday dinner table meltdown with extended members of your family who do feel the need to win an argument. 

• #3 Hack - How to always wake up on the right side of the bed. Life is our greatest gift, but it is also really hard. Chances are, at some point along the way, we will all go through a true challenge, and when that time comes, you can sink or you can swim. My oldest child, Calum, was diagnosed with cancer at the age of three and that period was the darkest of my life. I was so, so scared. I worried every single day something bad might happen, and I simply could not sit and keep all those thoughts inside my head, so I wrote them down. I wrote emails to family and friends, which eventually became a public blog, and I included stories about Calum’s treatment and our long days in the hospital and the people we saw. From the babies with feeding tubes to the teenagers, who just wanted to be hanging out with their friends, but were spending their lives hooked up to chemo. What we were going through was awful, and the things I saw on a daily basis were awful, so I found an outlet that changed the way I was processing the pain, and rather than keeping it inside and letting it eat away at me, I let it out. Not everyone is going to feel compelled to write - some people might go to actual therapy, or convert that negative energy into movement or exercise, others might write a song, whatever outlet you choose, if you can take the challenges that life hands you, feel it, accept it, grieve what has been lost, and then release it from you in a way that serves you, you can start everyday with a positive outlook because you can do something about the way you feel. You can not control the things that happen to you in life, but you can control the way you react to them, and everything that happens to you in a day, is an opportunity to channel your energy in a positive way. 

• #4 Hack - my final life hack - is how to give zero fudgsicles. When I say you should give zero fudgesicles, I don’t mean that you should not try or care, indeed, it is quite the opposite. I mean that, the things we really want in life are almost always things that we are scared to go after, and in order to achieve what you really want, you have to be ready to give zero fudgsicles if you fail or succeed, because deep down, you already know the only failure, ever, is if you chicken out and don’t do the thing. Go after the things you want and screw making excuses as to why you didn’t get that job, or do well on that test, or ask out that crush of yours - leave it all on the field. When I started my instagram page with zero followers making jokes about the challenges of being a mom and dancing in my kitchen in costumes while I was 9 months pregnant with my third child, my mother called my brother and said, “Honey, do you think everything is OK with Caitlin?” I’ll admit, it was fairly unhinged, but I knew deep down that I had something to share, and I was nervous and self-conscious when I started, and I hated the way I sounded on camera, but I kept at it and now I am writing a book, and I am on the board of a couple of companies to help them creatively, and I get calls from TV producers who would like me to write a show for them, and when you are willing to make yourself truly vulnerable and you have zero fudgsicles left to give and you open yourself up to the world, the world will open itself up to you, I promise. You’re all amazing individuals, I guarantee you each have your own special genius. I believe that everyone does, and it is never, ever too late to go after what you want in life. Also dancing pretty much fixes everything. 

I wish you all the very best from the bottom of my heart today and for the rest of your lives. As you go off to celebrate with each other this week, remember, All-A-Taut-O, OK, stay out trouble. Congratulations to the class of 2025!