Ughhh Graduation

I heard someone say recently that “graduation is right around the corner.”
And I thought about that, for just a second. I thought…no, not really, it’s in 11 days and I’m scared shitless.

But I thought harder for a second longer and in a rare instance of me agreeing with strangers and giving them credit, I understood that they were right. They didn’t know the truth they were saying, but I’ll give them some sort of approval.

You see, when something is “right around the corner,” you instantly know two things. One, you’re on a journey of some sort; you’re moving and thus you’re able to be around the corner at some point in the future. Two, you can’t see what it is that is around the corner.

Graduation is this big idea; it’s this overwhelming event and process and experience that culminates four years of study and training. It represents those four years. Most of me loves that. Part me thinks it’s not enough.

Like, really? I walk down a row of chairs, shake the university president’s hand and walk off. I pose for some pictures, go home and get drunk with friends. When you strip it down to that level, it in all honesty sounds like an average weekend.

That thought came out through a terribly pessimistic filter, but it was an honest filter.

Aren’t four years worth more than a ceremony? Shouldn’t the hours of keystrokes and pencil marks and late nights and early mornings and cross country trips and published articles and jobs and volunteer work and classes and tests count for more?

I feel like part of my “problem” (Quote marks added for subjectivity and for the realization of my privilege) is that I don’t have any plans for after graduation. I think that if I had an idea of what I’d be doing and where I’d be living, I could get excited about the next chapter of my life. Not knowing, however, is creating this gargantuan black hole of uncertainty into which all my happy emotions are draining.

I’m hopeful that I’ll get things figured out; but until that point, I’m doubting the worth of a bachelor’s degree in a world that generally, and closetly, despises college students while requiring that people have a college education.

I don’t know. I guess that’s the bottom line. After four years of a college education I’m saying “I don’t know.” I’m not sure if that’s a testament to a failing higher education system or an indicator of me actually being smart enough to admit when I don’t know something.

What I do know, though, is how completely worthless it feels to get rejected from entry-level jobs even with “BA Degree” on my resume. I guess I know now, in some way, how some 8.8 percent of Americans feel. Jobless.

Awesome.
Maybe not.

I know I sound terribly bitter. Probably because I am. But somewhere in my heart of coal, I know graduation will evolve into a good thing for me. It has to.

I might just cry if it doesn’t.
And I hate crying almost as much as I hate not having a plan.

Here’s to you, Humboldt State. And to hoping that my next post is much more upbeat than this one.

Angus & Julia Stone - Big Jet Plane music video from The Silentlights on Vimeo.

Two Thousand Eleven

Grandma’s rosary clinks as it tumbles out of her hand. For a minute Jesus falls, still crucified, until the string of purple beads hang him, suspended in air, swinging slightly. Her fingers fumble purposefully over the beads as she tells us about how she worries a lot lately.

I want to tell her that she always worries, and always has. But doing that might add another worry to her list of worries, thus making her worry more, and I don’t want to do that. Not now. Not on the way to a hospital. Not on the way to see my dad.

She says at another point during the day, this time in the hospital room, this time with Jesus slipped safely and reliably in her purse, that “tomorrow” is her new thing. Quite literally, she says that.

“Tomorrow is my new thing.” Her Filipino accent crushes the “th” in “thing,” and I smile.

She says, “Today might not be so good, but tomorrow will be better. I have to tell myself that, you know. I tell myself that.”

I think about it for a moment as I watch my dad. He grimaces as he pushes himself up in his bed to eat the soup they have brought him for lunch. A grimace. Completely out of character. Worried. Completely out of character. Not invincible. Completely out of character.

But I realize, leaning up against a window with a view of nothing that Grandma is right. She is normally right about these things. Tomorrow can be better. 2011 can be better, not because 2010 wasn’t, but because there is always the hope for improvement. For me, for you, for our families and friends, for the human condition. It is that hope that can make 2011 a good year. And it’s one of the only hopes we can really hold on to.

I think of my dad sitting in his hospital room. The Discovery Channel plays some repetitive reality show while he bounces his knee. Nurses walk in and out. Everything is so orderly. And I think of the nameless feet I can see through the propped open doors of the other hospital rooms. The white rubber tread on the bottom of the socks is the only interesting thing about that view... save for a stray balloon. Even that... even the most ridiculous of the ridiculous... is mundane in a hospital. And I think: Tomorrow is all they have. And most of them are happy for tomorrow. I am happy for tomorrow. And I think, friend, that you should be, too. We all should be.

Amen.

Tune for the Day

02 Where We Know by dylanfoxandthewave