Graduation Nostalgia Hits Post-Ceremony

My weeks of barbeque, potato salad and “Congrats Grad!” Costco cakes are over.  

As is the weeklong taste of freedom, parties and hot dogs down at Myrtle called beach week. 

The absence of festivities has left a void only thought and memories can fill. After the seven-hour drive up from Myrtle on Saturday, I realized home cooked meals and my bed have become luxuries. 

I will never sleep in my bed before school again, I thought to myself. When I woke up in my own bed this morning, I looked at my yearbook and wished more people had signed it. My kids might think I was some kind of loser who wrote a weekly column and always did her homework or something.

All these thoughts have hit me long after my actual graduation on June 16. At graduation, my eyes stayed dry. It was an hour and forty minutes filled with feelings of boredom and peaked interest at the kids, who after four years, I still did not know. 

My classmate Alex Emmons gave a fantastic speech highlighting the need for curiosity as the Class of 2011 goes forth into the real (or almost real) world of college, but I was excited to go out to lunch with my family.

I was looking forward to more grad parties, the All Night Grad Party my school hosts and beach week.  There was no time for nostalgia.

This transition between high school and college is a concoction similar to what I felt sitting at graduation-boredom and peaked interest at ideas for the future I have not become acquainted with.  However, the difference is at my graduation I was silently saying goodbye.  Now, I am saying hello to a new life.