For most people of accomplishment, where they attended school is just one line of their bio on Wikipedia or on a company website. Yup. Just that one line for all of the ways they spent Saturday nights, lessons they learned, classes they took, people they dated and friends they made. It's just one line. Now, when you're about to graduate from said college, diminishing all of your semesters spent there and all of the things that transpired there into just one line of the bio feels like a huge disservice to all parties involved. But it's easier when you realize it's only that one line because all the things that are yet to come take up so much space themselves. I've had editors before. I know the word count has gotta give somewhere.
My bio on this website does say in just one line where I attend school. Partially because it's my website and I make the rules, and partially because I'm a young spring chicken with limited life behind me, my undergraduate experiences do make up most of the bio.
But I know someday it'll change. I have a big list of things I still want to do! I fully understand that someday my college experiences will take up many fewer words because "voiced a Disney princess," "hosted Miss America Pageant," and "lives in [City, State] with her husband and two to three children" can take up a lot of space. (*Ahem* A girl can dream.)
About this natural editing process, there are two things I know to be true. The first is that by definition, a commencement is a beginning. Though if you're like me, you will have emotional days where you will forget that a commencement is a beginning. Some days you will lose your appetite, and moving on will feel like a painful realization everything you thought you knew is changing. You might think, for the first time, that no matter how sweet, kind and hard-working you have tried to be, nothing is guaranteed to anyone in this life. The second is that places are just that: places. They're only coordinates on a map.
And there's an important fact about places: most of the things that made them special are carried and kept in your heart. The people, the memories, the smells and the comforts of home. You take those with you. And just like Gabriel García Márquez once wrote, "nobody can take away the dances you've already had." Nobody. Not leaving, not moving on, and not commencement.
They say you're truly at peace when you're living for nothing but the here and now. To continue the metaphor, you're at peace not in the moments leading up to the dance or afterward, but you're most at peace when you're just dancing. Living in the past will emphasize regret, nostalgia and sometimes pain over the fact that it's over and you can't change it. And living in the future emphasizes anxiety over all the things that are still uncertain and all the things you can't control. Graduating from college is one of those rare and strange crossroads of past and future that makes finding peace in the present difficult. It's a bit like buying a house. As much as you know your current house doesn't fit what you need anymore, it's really hard to envision the next home being absolutely perfect when it's still only drywall and blue prints.
As you prepare to leave a place that has meant a significant amount to you for three-and-a-half years, or has at least provided some comfort, you'll examine the friendships you formed there (past) and wonder if and how these people will continue to fit into the picture (future.) Even when you start to pack your suitcases for home (future), you'll find inanimate objects suddenly have memories and meaning attached to them (past) that you didn't really know existed.
My bio on this website does say in just one line where I attend school. Partially because it's my website and I make the rules, and partially because I'm a young spring chicken with limited life behind me, my undergraduate experiences do make up most of the bio.
But I know someday it'll change. I have a big list of things I still want to do! I fully understand that someday my college experiences will take up many fewer words because "voiced a Disney princess," "hosted Miss America Pageant," and "lives in [City, State] with her husband and two to three children" can take up a lot of space. (*Ahem* A girl can dream.)
About this natural editing process, there are two things I know to be true. The first is that by definition, a commencement is a beginning. Though if you're like me, you will have emotional days where you will forget that a commencement is a beginning. Some days you will lose your appetite, and moving on will feel like a painful realization everything you thought you knew is changing. You might think, for the first time, that no matter how sweet, kind and hard-working you have tried to be, nothing is guaranteed to anyone in this life. The second is that places are just that: places. They're only coordinates on a map.
And there's an important fact about places: most of the things that made them special are carried and kept in your heart. The people, the memories, the smells and the comforts of home. You take those with you. And just like Gabriel García Márquez once wrote, "nobody can take away the dances you've already had." Nobody. Not leaving, not moving on, and not commencement.
They say you're truly at peace when you're living for nothing but the here and now. To continue the metaphor, you're at peace not in the moments leading up to the dance or afterward, but you're most at peace when you're just dancing. Living in the past will emphasize regret, nostalgia and sometimes pain over the fact that it's over and you can't change it. And living in the future emphasizes anxiety over all the things that are still uncertain and all the things you can't control. Graduating from college is one of those rare and strange crossroads of past and future that makes finding peace in the present difficult. It's a bit like buying a house. As much as you know your current house doesn't fit what you need anymore, it's really hard to envision the next home being absolutely perfect when it's still only drywall and blue prints.
As you prepare to leave a place that has meant a significant amount to you for three-and-a-half years, or has at least provided some comfort, you'll examine the friendships you formed there (past) and wonder if and how these people will continue to fit into the picture (future.) Even when you start to pack your suitcases for home (future), you'll find inanimate objects suddenly have memories and meaning attached to them (past) that you didn't really know existed.
I'm not going to lie. Acknowledging things as "over" and putting them in the past is hard work. It's made easier by recognizing the future as exciting. All of the unknowns are also still things you get to explore for the very first time. There are stories you still get to cover, people you still get to meet, someday a puppy to adopt and an apartment to decorate. And yup, there's even traffic you get to sit in. (!!!) Yes, people and places are coming that are better than your imagination ever thought possible. Unknowns aren't comfortable, they aren't safe and they certainly aren't certain. And in life, letting go of anything requires a significant period of grieving, no matter how exciting the things that await you and someday fill the rest of your bio will be.
You can't deny yourself the sadness that comes with releasing things that were once beneficial and important. Thou shalt not apologize for being the at times intense and sensitive creature you are with a heart that enables you to feel deeply. You just can't let that sadness overshadow the brightness of the new things coming to take their place. You must know they will be bright. They will be plentiful. And you will wake up one day with all of the pieces in place.
Until then, there are times in your life, which are blessings, where you do not need to know what's next. Nope, not every single thing on the checklist of life has to be figured out, so long as you can figure out how to have faith that the best is yet to come. The bio will be long. The bio will be good. And perhaps the most important lesson of all: when no one is putting pressure on you to have all the answers and a bio that's complete, don't put it on yourself.
Watch some HGTV and eat some pasta instead.
You heard it here first,
Jordan
You can't deny yourself the sadness that comes with releasing things that were once beneficial and important. Thou shalt not apologize for being the at times intense and sensitive creature you are with a heart that enables you to feel deeply. You just can't let that sadness overshadow the brightness of the new things coming to take their place. You must know they will be bright. They will be plentiful. And you will wake up one day with all of the pieces in place.
Until then, there are times in your life, which are blessings, where you do not need to know what's next. Nope, not every single thing on the checklist of life has to be figured out, so long as you can figure out how to have faith that the best is yet to come. The bio will be long. The bio will be good. And perhaps the most important lesson of all: when no one is putting pressure on you to have all the answers and a bio that's complete, don't put it on yourself.
Watch some HGTV and eat some pasta instead.
You heard it here first,
Jordan
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