Peace of Mind

World Cup 2010

I love this time of year.

Graduation?

Graduation blew right past me, but this is what I remember.

Friday morning – International Center Graduation Celebration. Free gifts. Free food. It hasn’t hit me yet.

Friday afternoon – Last shift (and what feels like the longest shift) of work ever. I say goodbye Revelle ResLife and realize it is quite likely I will never find a job that permits me to watch as much television as I did. I think I’m starting to feel it.

Friday night – All Campus Graduation Celebration. Fireworks and fine company. It’s hitting me, it’s hitting me. I can’t sleep for most of the night.

Saturday morning – I drive to pick up a gown from my friend in North Park. Yes, I am too cheap to buy my own (and let’s be honest, an ugly recycled graduation gown should not cost anywhere near $60) and too tall to borrow one from anyone else in my apartment. I am scattered and unprepared.

Saturday afternoon – I get it together. Graduation gown aired out and hung up in the closet. Graduation stoles pinned and ready to wear. Graduation cap and Muir College tassel waiting on the table. Totally ready to go–

NOT.

Bonnie, late. Rush, rush, rush. Lost on the road, frantic directions, finally makes it. Picks me up. Sprinting out the door. Gathering by 4pm? Leave Costa Verde at 3:54. Still time. Traffic, traffic, traffic. Probably late. Realize cap is at home. Stopped dead traffic. Freaking cars. Freaking out. 4:13pm. Definitely late. See Heather. Beg her for a cap. Still need a tassel. 4:24pm. Totally late. Terrified fear of missing graduation. Dropped off. Rush to field to join the line, tassel-less (of course). Hot mess. Truly FML.

But then, Pauline runs slow-motion like some sort of hero from an epic movie, my tassel in hand. Eureka! The day is saved!

I proudly walk across the field in my goofy looking hat and my silly looking graduation costume to the sharp sounds of bagpipes. Everything else really is a blur. I remember it in flashes. Waiting for the lines to move, walking onto the stage, hearing my name called, shaking hands with the Provost, taking pictures, taking more pictures, looking back at the nearly empty field and leaving.

What a fitting way for me to graduate. Of course this would happen to me– all the fear and stress of being late for the ceremony, leaving my cap at home, not having a tassel to turn over to the left side of my hat. And then it all ends well with a series of selfless friends and enormously good luck.

In a way, this embodies my college experience– self-imposed pressure, overreacting stress, major breakdown, barely-made deadlines, and then… calm. Maybe this is the way I work. Maybe this is the only way I know how to be. Either way, it is done. I graduated! It feels like everything else I do– a crazy mess followed by a sigh of relief and a comforting knowledge that everything always works out for the best.

Phew. Congratulations UCSD Class of 2010!