During the three hour ceremony, I sat between two girls I never met during my four years of college. We whispered and giggled as if we had already been friends. Instead of crying, I laughed.
I thought about the only cycle we've known: school-winter break-school-spring break-school-summer vacation-school-repeat.
Today that would end, and a new cycle will begin.
I sat in one of the last rows, the seating was alphabetical. David Axelrod began the ceremony with a humbling speech. He told us to stop worrying about getting a job, finding a career, and making money and to do what we love, and the rest with follow.
The students graduating with a Masters degree walked across the stage to receive honors and individual applause. After hearing professors talk about these students it was no doubt they have been places and met people that would lead them to a bright future.
For a moment I wondered if I did everything I should have done. Maybe I should have done things different so I could have been up there with special acknowledgments too. But then I caught myself comparing. I had been places and met people, and so had the two girls next to me, and so had everyone else in the auditorium.
All of us, including the Masters students, did what we were set out to do during that time in our lives. And during these years, during the cycle we've known, we experienced life as we knew it.
Today we are celebrating 20-something years of academics and graduating a significant portion of our lives, a quarter of our lives where we learned about ourselves. We met people we needed to meet and went places we needed to go.
The friends I have made, the friends I thought I had made, the crushes, the first kisses, the first loves, the heartbreak, the arguments, the teachers who encouraged us, and those who didn't care, the sports teams, the clubs, the hangout spots, the first jobs, the internships, service work, your co-workers, managers, and supervisors, the vacations, spring breaks, the first apartments, the roommates, the times spent alone, and times spent together, are you catching on?
These are the people you've met and the places you've been. These are the experiences that continued to mold us throughout the years.
My first day of kindergarten I asked a girl playing 'house' to be my friend. She said yes, and today we celebrated our third graduation together. I consider her family.
My best friend introduced herself to me after my first high school class, Freshmen Seminar. I cried when she left to go away for college, knowing that the next four years would be much different than high school.
And my boyfriend of three years sat next to me in my first college class, Discover Chicago. He had been the friend I needed most during these years and grown to be a special part of my life.
And now two and a half hours later, my row began to line up. It was time to receive our diplomas and our turn to stand at the front of the auditorium and look back at our fellow classmates wishing them the best. I gripped onto the railing as I concentrated on every step walking up those stairs, careful not to fall. And then my name was called, 'Carrie Schwebl.' I smiled big and walked across the stage.
Everyone felt something different during their moment, but once their moment passed, what did they feel? When I stepped down from the stage and back to my section, I knew this was it. And I wasn't nervous, I wasn't overwhelmed or thinking 'now what?'. In fact, for the first time in a long time, I felt free.
We were told to go out and live what we have dreamed of since we were children. Follow the dreams that we've thought about following, travel to the places we thought about traveling to, this was the time to do it.
This chapter has closed, Sunday June 14 at 11:34am. And now for this new chapter of our lives, we will meet people we need to meet and go places we need to go.
Congrats you guys! Enjoy round two!
-- Post From My iPhone
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