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Health & Fitness

Graduation Double Take

I've invited my son to join me on a double Blog description of his graduation from College; his perspective and mine. I hope you all find something to relate to in either of our points of view.

 

About a month and a half back, my Mom approached me with the idea of a double blog for her Patch column.  She knew I loved to write and thought I was good enough as a writer not to make the concept a total snoozer.  Plus, it seemed like a great way to get at a topic from two different perspectives.

I told her I wasn’t sure, that my schedule was pretty full, but I’d try to squeeze in some writing time between sleeping on the couch and playing Xbox (it’s been a busy summer so far).

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After talking it over, we both agreed that the first topic (sequels available upon demand) should be one that had touched both of us personally and which allowed us to sort through those emotions on paper, or computer screen, as it were. 

My college graduation seemed to fit the bill perfectly.

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So here we go.  We’ll start with the graduate (that’s me).

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At the time of this writing, it has been exactly one month since I graduated and, to be honest, I can’t say I feel any different.

Not that I was really expecting it: I got a diploma, not a new spleen.  But for such a milestone I thought, I don’t know that at least something significant would change.

Apart from the fact that I can now put College Graduate on my resume, my life seems exactly the same as it was before I walked across that stage.

I still get carded when I try to order a beer. 

I still get that look of “Can you really pay for this yourself?” from waiters when I pull out my credit card to pay for a meal. 

Heck, according to American Family Insurance I still have the same driving ability I did when I was 16 (I guess that for young guys like me car insurance premiums won’t drop until some time in my mid-twenties; apparently that’s when I get smarter and pose less of a risk on the road…because we all know that mistakes stop once you get past 25).

Of course there is that one obvious thing that I haven’t mentioned yet: thankfully, I do have an adult-job waiting for me at the end of the summer.

That’s new and exciting and certainly will present a change in my life, but my start date is two months away.  I’m not complaining about the extra time off, it’s just that it feels like I’m stuck in a crack.  I’m wedged right between “Alright kid you’re on your own.” and “You want money for what?!”

And that’s what I'm trying to communicate in this Blog.  Somehow, between now and when I start my job; I have to morph into a tax-paying, vote-casting real world adult. 

I thought that magically happened when I graduated college; that after I grabbed my diploma I’d be sent through, like, an Adulto-Maker 5000 and come out in a suit and tie with a tax return in my hand.  Maybe I got in the wrong line, but I didn’t see any such machine at commencement.

So instead, I find myself one month removed from a very significant event in my life feeling slightly underwhelmed and a little confused, and wondering just how exactly I become this adult that college was training me to be.

Good news is that I have a whole summer to figure it out.  Bad news is that Uncle Sam will be coming for my first paycheck regardless of how successful I am in that endeavor.

Oh well, at least this is the last change I’ll ever have to go through in my life.

 

…What?  You mean college is just the beginning?  There’s more change and uncertainty coming?!

 

…Oh…

Is it too late to give back that diploma?

 

 

Now it’s my turn…graduation from a Mom’s point of view.

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Wow, that went fast!  Really, that was about all I was thinking as I waited for them to announce his name and as I was looking for a scenic place for pictures that was not crawling with other graduates. 

I remembered the day we dropped him off at Indiana University and how impressed I was that he was doing such a great job at putting on a brave front.  I knew, inside, he had to be thinking to himself, “What the $%^& did I get myself into, here?”

But he made it.  That part I never doubted.  After all he has always been an intelligent and dedicated student (Isn’t that every parent’s perspective?). 

But going to college away from home does change you. 

It’s about more than grades and diplomas.

It’s about living life on your own; and learning you can count on yourself.  It’s about making your own choices and, hopefully, making good choices.  It’s about learning about people and learning about you.

He came out of the experience mature, confident and more focused.

So here we are, four years later, and he was waiting to walk across that stage and end his college years by accepting his fake diploma.  The real one will be mailed in approximately three weeks, we are told.  Hey, the school wants to make sure that he passed before they issue that piece of paper that cost him a great deal of sweat and my husband and I a great deal of cash! 

If you ask me, for what they charge for a college education, the payments alone earn the degree, but I understand the degree must be earned by grades and not cash outlay.  Enough said.

He was going through this formal ceremony for his father and me.  As I stated in my last blog, he’s not much for ceremony.  He would have ended it with throwing everything in garbage bags, filling his car and ours and not looking back.  It was time to move on and he was ready for the move.

The tears held off until after the ceremony and after he was texted to “stand up” so that Grandma and Grandpa could see his mortar board head in the sea of people in front of them. (No, “It’s me” in masking tape would not be spelled out on this graduate's cap.)

They held off until after the picture shot was decided upon and the photos taken. 

But the floodgates opened when we met him after the ceremony.  They opened as we searched the sea of graduates, now doubled as parents and loved ones joined the crowd.   They spilled over as we connected. 

My husband was not immune.  A lot had ended for all of us with this ceremony.

It was done.  This journey that started four years ago, ended with all of us having grown tremendously.  As much as I saw the maturity in our son, I saw the acceptance in my husband and I.

As much as he is well on his journey to manhood, we are on our journey of learning to live with adult children in our lives.

I’m not sure who has the more difficult path, but I would place my bets on us. 

It’s harder to teach an old dog new tricks. 

Pray for our kids.  I am sure they will need it.

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