For the graduates

It’s April 1^st, better known as April Fool’s Day, a holiday that has never been a particular favorite of mine. I can pull a prank, sure- and even take one with relative grace- but somehow covering a floor with small cups of water, fitting tape over a toothbrush, or calling random numbers to ask if the recipient’s refrigerator is running has never seemed to be the height of comedy to me. Then again, with pop culture producing such gems this year as the movie Jack and Jill and a resuscitated version of the television show Punk’d, maybe I should just be thankful that things aren’t worse. (By the way, since Ashton Kutcher has officially fallen out of public favor—as a side note, I’m not superstitious, but if I worked on 3 ½ Men I would seriously be thinking of getting out of there—MTV has hired a new host for Punk’d. Here’s a hint: it’s Justin Beiber. Ok, so that’s less of a hint and more of me just telling you, but you know. The Beibs has made an interesting career move (i.e. down). Can I tell you my lifelong dream that just occurred to me in this moment? It’s that Justin Beiber would be on a season of The Bachelor. Which would mostly just consist of the women swooning audibly whenever he came into the room, and him wooing them via song and hair flips.)

Anyway, the whole point about opening with the time of year is to mark it as a moment for reflection. The end of the school year is coming up in May… a year since I graduated from college. And while I’m too aware of our page view count to think of this post as any sort of primer for this year’s graduates, it could, possibly, unexpectedly be viewed by someone completely unintentionally (much like the audiences of Jack and Jill). And I sort of hope that by working through everything I’ve experienced in the last year, maybe a coherence will begin to arise. That, or someone else will feel better that they’re not the only one who doesn’t have it all together yet.

Graduation day was pretty much perfect, really, everything it should’ve been: sunny and floaty and filled to the brim with short goodbyes and pictures and hugs that held the affection of years in fingertips. I hope this year’s graduates feel that immense pride that comes only occasionally and with public acknowledgment, and that they enjoy every single second of it. I also hope they don’t wear red T-strap heels like I did, because those babies will sink right down into the reception field. Take my word for it, your feet will not end up in any pictures; and if they did, people will not be thinking, What cute shoes, they will be thinking, She should have worn cleats.

So the graduation is perfect, as is, hopefully, the party afterward—whether you end up drinking wine in a hotel room late at night with your roommates, going to a friend’s wedding, or climbing the student union with your dormmates in fulfillment of some freshmen-year promise to yourself. And finally you finish saying goodbye… and you climb into your car to drive home, and your stuff is piled so high you can’t see out the back window, which doesn’t matter because you’re crying too hard to be checking traffic, anyway. I mean, it could happen this way, is what I’m saying.

It was a short drive for me, only a couple hours to get home to Kentucky, and by the time I pulled into that driveway back home, my life had changed. It’s widely acknowledged that graduating is a big deal in someone’s life; the accomplishment of four years’ work, the satisfaction (or adequacy) of your GPA or your honors; but I have come to think it is such a huge moment less because of the degree you have earned that day, and more because of what you have to do in the days after.

When I graduated from Taylor University, I left a community in which I was completely immersed and from which I derived a significant- and the most cherished- part of my dignity and identity. Maybe that wasn’t as healthy as I thought it was at the time. I knew who I was and how I fit; and then I left that place entirely and abruptly. I wasn’t prepared to rebase my self-image, self-confidence and self-worth in the context of completely different accomplishments and relationships. And not only was I not expecting that curveball; I had to hit that pitch on top of starting a new job- my first real job ever- and starting from Square 1 with $75,000 worth of student debt. In short, it was like I was being Punk’d by the Biebs.

I entered a workplace and established a daily routine entirely unlike any I’ve ever had, in terms of work and time commitment. For the first time, I’ve begun professional relationships, had clients, and interacted regularly with management. I restarted friendships from long ago and I began to navigate the way to stay connected with my friends from school.

The relationship I cared most deeply about ended in a heartbreaking and deeply dissatisfying way, and I had to figure out how to move on without resentment or bitterness clouding years of beautiful and edifying and sweet memories.

I have struggled to maintain my weight in the light of an entirely different, and much less active, lifestyle. I have changed my eating habits in a somewhat drastic direction (I am now a semi-committed vegetarian; an obvious choice for someone in a landlocked state, I’m sure you’ll agree). I have not been entirely successful; nor have I completely failed.

I moved back into my parent’s house and have been trying to balance pride and financial independence with the realities of loan payments and gas prices and (broken record) taxes. And underneath it all is this feeling that I am still waiting for life to really start.

I have never been perfect, or really beautiful, except in moments; and now those moments are fewer and further between. Life has been hard this year, really hard, and I didn’t come out on top in all categories. It’s hard to feel like I am failing in some way with the questions people ask (Are you working? Do you have your own place? What did you go to school for? Where is your boyfriend? Are you working in your field yet?); but there has to be a point at which what I’m doing is ok. Maybe this is pride pushing against the structures of real life, or maybe I’m more ambitious than I thought I was, or maybe I am missing a grand calling somehow. But how do you know what you ought to do? Providence must use the constructs of timing and opportunity. So, maybe the question is not why am I waiting, but how.

rkb