“Is this part of it?” (Me)
“Waiting is always part of it” (Fellow graduate seated next to me at the ceremony)
Today I graduated.
I am now a master (m.phil) on the subject of Irish Writers. I have a diploma written in Latin, so you know it’s legit.
To be honest, I don’t know how I feel about it all just yet. I’m glad that my department cheered and whooped the loudest. I’m glad my parents were there to embarrass me in front of my classmates by being the only ones who paid for the professional photographer. I’m glad they came at all. I’m glad I got to see everyone again. I’m glad some people who I didn’t even realize I’d missed greeted me with an actual hug and others promised to come visit me in Berlin. I’m glad it was sunny and warm. I’m glad the dress code was all black. I’m glad we rented the robes and caps and didn’t buy them. I’m glad the ceremony was short but sweet. I’m glad I got to come back one last time.
Those are the sweet aspects of this bittersweet moment.
If you want to know what I miss, it’s mostly being in school, having friends nearby, and knowing who and what I am within a larger institution.
If you want to know what I’m not so glad about, it’s that I now truly feel like I’m done; done with here, done with this part of my life, and to me that kind of finality is inherently sad. I mean, I’m literally one (master’s) degree closer to my own death, right?
In the introduction to the ceremony, they made a point to say it’s called a commencement, not a graduation, because it’s supposed to mark a beginning rather than an ending; a transition into more education, or as they put it, a continuation in your lifelong pursuit of knowledge and understanding, but it didn’t feel like that to me.
There’s something very final about this particular ritual. Maybe it’s the fact that it takes place a whole year after the degree itself ended, I don’t really know. What I do know is it feels like saying goodbye, not just to the people and the school, but to a version of my life that made sense. Not as much sense as my undergraduate self, granted, but a whole heck of a lot more sense than my Berlin-dwelling self. But, even ignoring that unsettling trend towards nonsense, it’s sad to wander through the familiar and feel disconnected from it, and that’s what Dublin feels like. How do I exist in this space?
I guess what I’m saying is: I’m a graduate graduate; why do I feel like a freshman again?