Graduation: More Than Just College

I graduated last week. I'm a semester later than my high school peers, but I did it.

I also fought against being proud of myself for a long time. I told myself that it meant nothing because I didn't like college, because I didn't work as hard as I worked in high school, and because my school wasn't hard enough. I told myself that, because I didn't feel intimately attached to my college, I was a failure at the "college thing."

But the truth is, I did more than most at college. I faced more struggles than the average college kid: depression, the remnants of an eating disorder (in my first few years), anxiety, a psychopathic therapist whose grip I had to extract myself from. It wasn't always easy to get up in the morning and face a full day of classes. There were many instances when the weight of assignments threatened to pull me under. I switched therapists and had to learn to trust again.

Most kids just deal with classes. (And I had to contend with those too)

So I didn't want to feel proud. I was frustrated with my teachers from college and missed the academic rigor that I exposed myself to in high school. I didn't want to accept that I had done anything worth celebrating.

In the days leading up to graduation, it never really seemed like it was coming. I rationalized the lack of emotion by saying that I just never connected with the school. I rationalized my attachment to high school by saying that I had spent thirteen years in that school; I spent only three and a half years in college.

I graduated a semester early (given the date when I matriculated officially) but was really a semester behind--having left Johns Hopkins (my first school of choice) after only a short period of time in 2004. I matriculated for the second time in the Fall of 2005.

This all by way of saying that it finally hit me. Maybe it was when I put on that light blue cap and gown, maybe it was at dinner with my friends that night, maybe it was at the graduation party that we at the Rainbow Room this past Saturday. I'm not really sure when the change occurred, but all of a sudden I knew that I did have something to celebrate. Yes, I was celebrating my graduation and the fact that I never have to take another college class EVER, but I was also celebrating a personal triumph.

I am no longer the same kid that graduated from high school in 2004. I am stronger, braver, smarter, and more confident. For the most part, I can acknowledge that I have a place in the world--a point for my existence. I am no longer caught in the grasp of a crazy therapist. I have good friends, in reciprocal friendships. I can go out for dinner without the panic that used to set in during high school. I have published a book and found a place for myself in the professional world. I have a paying job in an economy where most of my friends have been laid off (and it's a job that I found and secured for myself). And most importantly, I know that I can take on anything and succeed.

My dad's toast to me (on graduation night) was about some of the greatest people in history had to face odds that might have seemed insurmountable. I suppose he was also saying that I faced just such odds. It probably wouldn't have surprised anyone if I just sat down and given up, but I didn't. My dad toasted me, not for the academic achievement represented by that piece of paper that I will frame and hang on the wall of an office one day, but because I got there at all. Because I met challenges and overcame them, not always gracefully, but I did it.

I may not want to celebrate the academics of my college career, but I suppose I am allowed to celebrate the triumph over the things that stood in my way. I worked hard and fought long, but I got there in the end. To that, I say, "Let's Celebrate!"