Post graduation.
Post
graduate.
After graduation.
Graduate of.
(My Lovely Family that has supported and loved me more than I have ever deserved)
I keep trying to rephrase graduation into something that is lucid
and somewhat tangible. No such luck.
It is so odd to think that so many years of my life have
been working up to something that occurred one month and one day ago. I feel a
sense of achievement which is to be expected after 16 years of education. But,
on the other end, I feel a loss and a brokenness. I love the educational
process, one of the many reasons I hope to continue on to grad school. The
lack of a constant intellectual forum to refer to? Well, it is almost downright
depressing. This last month has been filled with lots of rest, trying to relax,
completing grad school applications, Netflix, and thought about the future. I
get the feeling that the future is happening without me; I am struggling to
keep up with it. I have always been one for an adventure, but never a fan of
unknowns and these things are not mutually exclusive of each other. I do not
like being afraid of things that may or may not come to fruition.
While the uncertainty
pushes me toward insanity, I am rediscovering my passions. I have forgotten how
easy it is to lose all sense of time when reading. I have found more
interesting documentaries on Netflix than I can count. My Jeopardy knowledge
has increased tenfold. This is all to say that I have begun to realize that my
education does not have to stop just because I am no longer existing within the
realm of the classroom.
Each time I
post, I try to think of/acknowledge what I am grateful for. I am thankful for
those that have not abandoned me. I am grateful that words still exist on
pages. I am thankful that I can wake up each morning and without fail, continue
to learn something new.
For most of my life, there has been at least one person to
make fun of the way that I walk.
For most of my life, that has been my parents.
Imagine an 8 year old girl, desperate to be a part of the
football team yet denied by the community football coach aka her own father.
Football is not for little girls, he would lovingly explain. I always found
irony in the times that he would tell me how easily I could get hurt when just
hours before I listened to him explain the comparative safety of the sport to
concerned parents. I began to think that my girly bones were worse than glass;
they were made of that sugar glass that was only built for fake movie sets. The
kind that when broken, was sure to hurt no one else.
I am not made of glass.
Desperate to disprove my fragility and not pail in
comparison to my brother’s athletic nature, I got on the football field the
only way I knew how; I became a water boy. This was problematic for many
reasons. For one, I was not a boy and consequently no one on the team or otherwise
respected me. However, I took my job as hydration specialist very, very
seriously.
I Got Things Done.
I would go to every game and every practice bolting across
the field to the huddle with my never depleted Gatorade bottles. Sadly, what I
envisioned to be a gazelle like stride was probably more like a stumbling mess.
Despite the fact they constantly misspelled my name on my “waterperson”
trophy, ignored me, and generally acted displeased at my presence, it was one
of the first times in my life that I felt a sense of purpose. So, I kept
walking with that sense of purpose.
I continue walking with that sense even though it makes me
look like I am walking into a room to beat people.
I am just trying to get things done.
les
Also, I would love a good book suggestion (classics, non-fiction, fiction...anything!).
Currently Reading:
