As the weather grows warmer and the hemlines grow shorter, along with our waning attention spans, the University’s graduating seniors, super seniors and super-duper seniors reach the end of their times at the University. I cannot speak for the rest of the graduating seniors but, personally, I am terrified of graduating.
The things that I’m terrified of are limited to a short list – spiders, enclosed spaces, the icy specter of death, Serpentor – yet the thought of graduating sends me into itchy bouts of stress-induced hives.
But I’ve been here long enough. There’s no need to put this off any longer. After several years of piddling around, living a life of wonton listlessness, it’s time for me to take the plunge off the cliff.
It’s time for me to graduate. And after all these years, and after all the graduations in which I have participated, you’d think it would be a pretty cut-and-dry situation.
Nah, it’s still a tad worrisome.
My first graduation happened in the early ’90s, when I graduated from elementary school at Briscoe Elementary in Ashland, Ore. This was the same school that my mother attended in the 1950s. It doesn’t exist anymore – not as a school, at least. It closed in 2003, along with a portion of my childhood (cue maudlin music).
We had a large ceremony, attended by parents and well-wishers. It was an emotional experience. We all knew that we were turning a chapter in our lives. People cried. Parents snapped photos. We kids sang Whitney Houston’s aural abomination “Greatest Love of All.” It was a good time.
At the time, I wanted to be an astronaut. I don’t remember why. Well, nobody says they want to be a plumber when they’re 11.
The next chapter in my life, middle school, was populated by wedgie-mad bullies and a general level of nerdy gawkiness characterized by my insistence on wearing bright blue sweat pants. When I graduated from the eighth grade, I once again participated in a graduation – a scary reminder that from this point forward, our lives would start to matter. In a very subtle manner, we were told that our basic level of worth would be tied to our grade point averages. This was not an exaggeration.
At the time, I wanted to be an animator, despite my drawings looking like they were made by someone who had only recently evolved opposable thumbs.
High school was four years spent waiting for college, like a prison sentence. Prior to my senior year at Ashland Senior High School, I was an exchange student in Germany. None of my credits for the previous year transferred, per the orders of my Teutonic host family. Toiled as I did, the high school’s administrators barred me from walking with the rest of my class. Thus, my high school graduation was spent in the rain, watching the graduation from afar.
It did not seem to matter at the time, and at least a few students I didn’t know very well held up a sign: “Let Tyler walk.” Instead, I took a correspondence course to fulfill my last credit.
For many of my peers, High school graduation was the penultimate moment in their lives. After high school, there was only marriage to look forward to. That and death, if you can draw a distinction between the two.
At that time, I wanted to be a film writer, which is still a distinct possibility – because porn will not write itself.
As I grew older the graduation ceremonies became more elaborate, more involved and more serious. I will expect nothing less from my eventual graduation from college. I hope to God we don’t have to sing any Whitney Houston songs, though.
Over the years, I have realized that many one-time aspirations sprouted like dandelion seedlings before inevitably catching a strong gust of reality and blowing away. This is a recurring theme, however, as we never really graduate from anything, but rather grow into ourselves. Sometimes encountering the real world forces you to learn more about yourself.
School, as fun as it is, is not reality.
But as the weeks wind down, I’ll undoubtedly grow exponentially more concerned for my future. You will too. At the moment, I don’t know what I want to do. Maybe I’ll become a part-time astronaut and full-time animator who writes movies. I have to keep all my options open, after all.
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