I graduated from college today and decided that I needed to capture the beginning of this seismic shift of life somehow. So, voilà! This blog. I can only halfheartedly promise to be disciplined in updating it.
Commencement. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it means "the time of beginning" which can be taken two ways: It can mean that graduation is the starting line that we leave behind as soon as Pomp and Circumstance has finished playing, or it can mean that what follows graduation is an age of beginnings. I prefer the latter because it encapsulates what it means to be a post-grad. We are now faced with a period of time that will hold many beginnings for us. New jobs, new schools, new cities, new countries, new friends and a new life outside of the one we have spent four years nurturing in the safety of our small, liberal arts school. And who's to say how long this time of beginnings will last? Perhaps in a year we'll feel settled into our new lives, or perhaps it will take five or ten years before we feel like we're done "beginning" and ready to start the next phase. But what follows the beginning, anyway? The ending? That doesn't sound appealing. I don't ever want to be done beginning, in that case. I want to begin new things every chance I get! Which is why I'm moving to France later this year. I'm terrified. But this is the time decreed to be the beginning and if I don't begin now, when will I? So, to graduates past, present and future: may you live your life in the spirit of Commencement, a time of beginning!
I wonder if we don't even recognize a beginning until later, when we look back at it - or even, then, when we're at the end. It's true, beginnings are always happening. Sometimes we are in the midst of turmoil, wondering how we got there, and then later, as we are coming out of it, and seeing something beautiful, we see how it all unfolded. Embrace your beautiful graduation into new beginnings!
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