Late last night I finished my paper for my Environment and Sociology class, emailed it and went to bed. I am now officially done with school. I walk on Saturday. I slept like I haven't in two years. I am now officially done with my Masters degree.
I could say all the crap about it being so hard, so unexpected, yada yada yada but you know all that. Everyone says all that. Now I'm not denying any of it is true, it all is. This was the hardest thing I think I've done. I spent nights trying to convince myself I was strong enough to do this and it stretched and grew me more than I ever expected it to.
What I want to talk about tonight though is how with all this still something feels left out. I now am part of a club that only around 10% of the population is a part of. I also have read that only about 19% of students graduating with a Masters degree have a job at graduation. I feel like the past two years was just the preparation for now, now life gets real. I am now starting out, fresh, anew, ready. And scared to death.
I started this journey as a way to start over, to reset my life. Sometimes that reset takes you back further than you ever imagined. For me it sure did. I feel now like I have truly lost everything I had two years ago. from engaged, religious, and lost to single, questioning, and well still pretty damn lost. I now realize that I am one of those people that will never be fully happy. I just fricken got my masters degree and all I can focus on is getting my career lined up.
I want my career. I want my nice rental home. I'm focused on finding my future spouse, my nice house, my career, my life. I want to get on with my life. I want to have my 9 to 5, my brunch on Sundays, my themed parties. I love my themed parties and hope to bring them back very soon.
All this though is just the next steps. It takes so much for me to stop and enjoy what I've accomplished. Part of this that I expected something very different from the ending of this chapter. I don't know quiet what I expected but I'm starting to realize that few people seem to be as excited as I am. With a bachelor's degree, something that half of the population has, people seem to be filled with excitement and surprise beyond any reasonable amount. But with this degree people seem to act as though its just part of the normal day to day life. Its strange how people just congratulate me in the passing, during the conversation as though I just said I got a new haircut or found my long lost sock.
I do feel more like an adult than ever before. I have long thought that certain people were close and other weren't, now all those suspensions have been solidified and proven to be correct. When I graduated with my bachelor's degree of course everyone says they will stay in touch, that we will all be life long friends. It doesn't take long to realize these are all dreams of the sophomoric young who still believe it all to be true despite what any can tell them. By 26 I have learned enough to know that I know very little. I have learned enough to know that people, despite our best intentions come and go in our lives. This is a hard thing to accept. The hardest part of graduating is not the graduation, the final papers, or the realization that I now need to find a career, the hardest part is seeing who celebrates this huge victory with me. Its seeing those suspensions be legitimized. Its seeing the people who I have long thought I was grew apart from careless about this victory for me.
I'm the first person in my family to even graduate from college, to find someone that has gone to graduate school you have to look to my extended extended family. So this is a huge victory, a huge journey, and a tough road for me. Some of my closest friends have come around me, supporting me, putting up with my insanity the last two years but most of my friends have moved on. Most instead went down the path of starting families, getting married, or just focused on the day to day life. It becomes harder and harder to relate to these people that used to be my closest family and friends. Now I question if I should even send them a Christmas card. The hardest part of the end of this chapter is to see how many people, including myself, have evolved these past two years.
I must admit that I feel alone. I have no one to lay in bed with at the end of the night with talking about my hopes and fears. I know this though will come with time. I have very high expectations of who I am going to date, this week I feel that I justified those high expectations just a little more. Of course if I expect to meet someone who has a decent career I myself need this but now my expectation of a being educated and intelligent is a little easier to ask for.
I am surprised at what friens have proven their friendship the past few weeks. Of course I am also a little hurt by the friends I viewed as close but have done little to even call me or send a text message saying good job. I don't expect people to be as excited as me but it would mean a lot to have these friends at least notice that I am about to depart into a new very unwritten, little foreshadowed chapter of my life. This next chapter is where it all comes together, this is where I need every friend I ever made, this is where it gets proven. So I had hoped that some of these friends I valued would stand up and say they are ready.
But if I have learned one thing these past two years its that life is unexpected. Life is lived in the grey. I've long felt as though my life is sucked into wormholes that shoot me out to the most unexpected places in life and this week has proven that more than any time in my life. As hard as it is though I am still loving every minute of it. Life is scary, hard, hurtful, harsh, intense, unexpected, but through it all life is good.
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