pomp and circumstance

Everybody always seems to bring up graduation in conversation. Graduation, the end of an era, the end result of four years of hard work. Graduation is a new beginning, graduation is an end. It is crazy how hard it is for me to wrap my head around the idea that I will no longer be able to answer, "what do you do?" with, "I'm a student." I have no desire to attend grad school at anytime in the foreseeable future, that makes my final exams my final exams. Will I never sit in a lecture hall again? Will I never again stay up all night working on a homework assignment? Will I cross the Mackinaw bridge for the last time in my life? With the realization that that the ties holding me to this city will all snap in 33 days, is there a spot in my future for Marquette, when there was not a spot for Flint only four years ago? Every conversation I have had ends in the inevitable and expected question, "what's next." A simple question that expects a simple answer, yet somehow, the hardest question I have ever been asked. However, I find the answer I give rehearsed, although genuine. I know how to answer, the reality, my life, my future. I give my articulate accurate true response, and on more than one occasion a reply comes, "wow, moving fast, you're going to miss it." Moving fast? Why do so many graduates take time off immediately following graduation? Free for the first time in their lives and they feel compelled to work minimum wage and delay. I am not rushing, I am just refusing to stall. That degree will not be a crowning achievement for me, college will not be the best years of my life. I will not mope for months after walking across that stage in search of purpose. Yes, I enjoyed myself. Yes, I believe that there will be aspects of the experience that I will think of fondly, but to be honest, those four years were just a couple of hoops I had to jump through. It was the second to last shackle on my ankle, and the only shackle remaining, I feel confident in my ability to drag along with me. I can chip away at my debt slowly, but it is not holding me back, it is not holding me in Marquette. I am confident in my future. I am terrified of my future. But if there is one thing I know about life, it is that the longer a person delays something they want to do, the more reasons they find to not do it. Humans are creatures of logic and risk is risky, sometimes you just have to do it. So if I am rushing, it is because being idle is not a thing that comes to me easily, it is because I didn't come to the edge of a cliff to stare at the water. I am excited, antsy, nervous. I am nostalgic, accomplished, terrified. I feel a sense of pride not only with what I have done, but with what I will do. I am going to do what I have said I would do all along. I am ready. I am not looking back.