Rain, Graduates, and Goodbyes

Well, it’s been just a little over a week since Commencement, and I feel like I’ve finally settled back into home life in the country. I just spent the last few hours buying and repotting gerbera daisies (my favorite flower) and summer herbs. This ritual with my mom is the usual mark of the start of summer vacation made all the more important as this summer is most likely to be my last full one at home in Tennessee. Very bittersweet. The transition from school to home life is always a little challenging. Trading in paper deadlines, the bustle of campus and city life, and parties for pastoral life, large expanses of free time, and the simple  existence around here. I definitely feel like a foreigner now whenever I come back. I used to fit into a rhythm here before I left for school. I was used to it all, but now I feel like a stranger in a strange land, a feeling that I know is good, but feels odd regardless. However,  although I freely admit that I would rather live in a city any day, the first couple of weeks following my return to the country act as a nice stress reliever after the madness of finals, and this year, graduation.

That brings me to the real purpose of this post. Unfortunately so many of you could not join me for Commencement so I thought I could recap those final days to fill you in. For those of you who don’t know me, I recently graduated from the University of Rochester in Rochester, New York with a B.A. in American history. Now you’re up to speed.

I think the last place I left you all was the night before the big day when I was horrendously sleep deprived due to my nagging insomnia and in a stress-induced melancholy. The week prior to Commencement at my school is called Senior Week. They pack activities (wine tours, club nights, museum tours etc.) into that week in an effort to…well, I’m not really sure why they do it, but by the number of alcohol-related events, I can only safely gather that it was an attempt to keep us perpetually drunk until Sunday morning. I chose to do some of the activities and tried to rest and pack when I wasn’t spending those last precious moments with my friends before we all scattered to the winds. My parents and our dear friends Barbara and Wayne arrived Thursday, and from then on I spent most of my time during the day touring Rochester and giving them a taste of my life for the past four years, something they had only heard stories about. It was good, a bit hectic trying to fit that in with packing and socializing with friends, but good none the less.

We had gorgeous weather that week…until Saturday. It has been a wet spring in the East. The weekend of Commencement proved no different. The rain socked in Saturday night, and, as everyone feared, it continued non-stop through Sunday. The cold moved in as well. My school, though, in its unbending commitment to tradition in the face of whatever gets thrown at it held true to its on the quad rain or shine policy. I woke up the morning of the 15th at five hoping that by some miracle of mother nature the rain had moved on, but alas, the soft tapping of a steady barrage of water droplets on my window was still audible. Foolishly I showered and spent about an hour and a half trying to tame and style my unruly (made even more so by the damp) mass of long blonde hair. Surprisingly it turned out well, and looked rather fabulous until I stepped outside upon which it immediately went to pieces. By the time we all lined up at the starting point for the march, all of us looked like drowned, shivering rats. At least we all looked awful together. It also gave us one last opportunity for camaraderie as we could collectively gripe about Rochester’s atrocious weather and the often ridiculous decision-making abilities of our university. If there is one pastime students at my school participate in religiously, it is complaining. It really is a bonding experience, and mostly done in a good-natured way, mostly. A little known fact: upon the awarding of one’s degree(s) at UR, one also receives an official degree in bitching.

We were separated by colleges, those of us in humanities and social sciences were separated from the engineers and other sciences people. Most of my friends are of the latter persuasion, so Murthmaster (my fellow social scientist) and I arranged it where we could at least stand in the procession next to all our sciencey-type friends (practically all of them). We also managed to snag spots right in the front, so we were able to see the platform unblocked by umbrellas and mortarboards. It was quite nice, except for the multitude of official cameras trained on our bedraggled, soggy selves during the ceremony. Unfortunately, this evidence is up on our school’s website, which I WILL NOT be sharing here.

At any rate, after standing in the rain for about an hour, we processed down the middle of our big beautiful old quad, first past our well-wishing professors, then our loved ones, and finally we took our seats. The ceremony itself was a bit on the long side considering the weather conditions, and we were all graduatecicles by the end, but the speeches were nice, the right amount of inspiring without being cliche. I am still on the fence about our class president’s speech. He took it upon himself to award our class a moniker (one that I hope won’t stick, but I’m afraid I hope in vain). Forever more the members of our school’s class of 2011 will be known as “party nerds who know how to win.” This phrase is entirely fitting coming from the mouth our our CP, as any of his emails from the last year will show, and I will accept and acknowledge that we are pretty damn good party nerds, but I do not appreciate being associated with a crazy Charlie Sheen reference. Ah well, the rest of his speech was actually surprisingly appropriate and  mildly entertaining. C’est la vie.

The rest of the day was taken up with the departmental ceremonies. Although they officially confer degrees at the large ceremony, we don’t  actually get our diplomas until our departmental ceremonies. For those who belong to more than one, they are given the choice of which ceremony they would like to receive their diploma at. I am just a history major, and only went to that one. After a rushed photo shoot with some of my friends in the library immediately after the big ceremony, my party dashed to the auditorium where the history ceremony was to be held. They decided to try something new with us this year (why do I always end up in the guinea pig group?), and we were all to line up alphabetically to process into the auditorium followed by our professors. My department is a small one, and many students choose history as their secondary (and sometimes tertiary) major so not many decided to receive their diplomas there. The ceremony was considered a bumbling affair by many of those without an insider’s view of the department, I believe one girl seated close to me referred to it as “a shit show,” but I found it perfectly fitting for our department. It was a little disorganized, disheveled, disgruntled in parts, and long winded, but those traits made a fitting reflection of the department I came to know and quite earnestly love in my four years under its tutelage. Awards were given to both graduate and undergraduates, and my friend Andrew who was a fellow student in many of the history classes I took including the graduate class we took after our nominations as Christopher Lasch Fellows. It was a good speech, and I’m glad he was asked to give it. One of my most beloved professors, the head of undergraduate studies and quite possibly the smartest man I have ever met, was tasked with giving out our diplomas. He made a point to talk about each of us as we came up. Those of us who he had had more experience with got more time naturally, which made me feel a little sorry for those in the department who hadn’t gotten as involved and chose to hang back. I was jokingly dubbed “the pride of Nashville” in my bit, which was sweet. After those were finished, another of my former profs sang a very apropos Garrison Keillor ( I think) parody of “My Way,” and we filed out. There was a lovely reception afterward and I was able to introduce my loved ones to my favorite profs they had heard so much about including my wonderful advisor. We were able to chat for a bit and have one last banter sesh before it was time for us to leave. I actually found out he is doing some research in Florida in the near future so I may get to help him a little with that, which would be quite fun.

The rest of the day was spent eating lunch at one of my favorite restaurants in Rochester, a lovely crepe place on the Erie Canal, and loading up the van with all of my junk I somehow managed to get packed that week. I ate dinner with my parents and savored the feeling my newly minted bachelor’s was giving me. They dropped me off at my friends’ apartment afterward so I could go out with the gang for one last drink together. We all met at a charming little bar and for the first time since freshmen year, despite the new and absent faces, we collectively felt like our old group again. Maybe it was just the wave of nostalgia gripping me as I furiously tried to take in every last ounce of our time together before we separated indefinitely, but it all felt good… until it was time for goodbyes. Goodbyes are so hard especially when they are prolonged as ours were. Change is always difficult, and when change means letting go of people who have been so close to you you actually take that fact for granted, it’s even harder. Stiff upper lips were kept as we all gave multiple rounds of hugs, final congratulations and good lucks, and made promises of regular AIM, Skype, and Facebook updates. It was a bittersweet mixture of loss and promise, a final look back before we all took our last steps through the doorway separating the last four years from our waiting futures.

Having said that, I would like to take the opportunity just to state what an amazing group of people I have had the pleasure of sharing a circle with in my time at our university. I don’t think a brighter, funnier, more fun, and (hahaha) better looking group of friends has ever been. It was a true honor to share the college experience with them, and as we all go off to make our ways in the world I will truly miss them and fondly look back on our time together. Despite our many faults, those years could not have been more perfect.

So, everyone, that was my last week of undergrad in a nutshell more or less. It was good, it was wet, and it flew by so quickly leaving nothing but a multitude of memories and a rather dazed Betsy in its wake. Time to wrap it all up and meet my future. Good luck and bully for all of us, class of 2011, party nerds or otherwise, we have a world to conquer!

My parents' view of the ceremony amidst a sea of umbrellas

On the cusp

It came to my attention the other day that I have less than two weeks of undergraduate classes left. I was rather astonished although, I suppose, I shouldn’t have been. I just feel as if I went to sleep in February, operated on auto pilot like a sleeping killer whale, and now am waking up to find it’s the downslope of April.

There’s a curious atmosphere twitching in the air around here that only we seniors seem to detect, and for us, its permeating everything. There is an unrelenting urge to do it all. It’s an almost animalistic drive, fit it all in, live fully, soak it up while we can all while trying not to think of the inevitable goodbyes waiting for us in a few weeks. Classes have become inconsequential. Parties, group meals, and birthday outings have become vital rituals carried out as if not doing so will result in grave consequences. I, someone who has a reputation for giving up social engagements for academic pursuits, have fallen victim to this as well, surprisingly enough. The sense of urgency and immediacy has no less gripped me than my fellows.

An overwhelming sense of change and upheaval is palpable among us as well. We know what’s coming after May fifteenth, but we just can’t let go until that last moment passes. We’re all in some state of denial despite the very real job searches and graduate admission processes we’ve undertaken in the past months. We’re still not quite ready to acknowledge that the semester’s end will ring anything different from what it always has.

As graduation draws nearer, I’ve been thinking quite a lot. My mind seems to be on a constant reel of retrospectives, a constant comparison of all my developmental states here. I’m put in mind of Ovid’s words at the beginning of his Metamorphoses, “My mind now turns to stories of bodies changed/ Into new forms…” My mind, seemingly of its own volition, has done much the same. I’m swimming in a vast sea of change. I see it looming ahead, and I look back and can trace the trails it’s made in the last four years. So much can happen in that amount of time. Lessons are learned, hearts are broken and healed, friends are won, lost, and won again, and an awful lot of growing up happens. When I look back to the me of four years ago, I see a little girl, innocent and vulnerable but fiercely ignorant of it. It makes me feel old. Now I realize those of you who are among my elders will scoff at that, and I do realize that at twenty-two I have a ways to go, but I don’t care. In context, I still feel old and more than a little jaded. That little girl grew up a great deal since that last semester of high school.

The past four years have given me so much, good and bad, and I wouldn’t trade that time for anything. I’m grateful for so much. I’m glad I chose to leave home to study far away. I’m glad I landed here. I’m glad I fell in with the group I did and met the people I did. I like how these experiences shaped me. I like who I’ve become. Life is pretty brilliant. My only regret is that I’ve just realized this now. I suppose that’s just how our minds work, though. We don’t appreciate things until we are faced with their disappearance. Humans are the only animals capable of living in the moment while being cognizant of it, but at the same time, not truly appreciating its importance.

I used to fear change. I’ve always been someone comfortable with a rhythmic existence. Now, though, as I stare down my impending future, I’m happy. I embrace change, and, dare I say it, actually need it. It’s the same sensation I get when I find myself on the last pages of a book I’ve truly loved. There is a bitter sweetness. I don’t want the story to end, but at the same time I want to know what sort of close those last few pages will bring and feel the satisfaction of finishing the book. My time here, as wonderful as it has been, cannot go on forever, and this book has to be closed and shelved so I can go on to the next volume. If there is one thing this stage in my life has taught me, it’s that change brings a lot of things including happiness. After all, a root bound plant can’t grow and thrive properly. Change isn’t just something we have to accept, it’s something we can love.

Me four years ago when I visited my school for the first time