Graduation


I just finished the last of my schoolwork at Wellesley College. Yes, it is over. I am incapable of understanding or grasping this fact of life. My heart somehow won’t let me.

Wordsworth said that “there are some moments in time worth ages.” Today as I walked home from the library, I had one such age-worthy moments. Perfect swirling sparkling snow danced around me as I slowly and carefully walked on the well-worn paths of my college experience, music in my ears, blood at the end of my veins, blushed cheeks and warm insides. This is my home, my soul sang.

I am realizing, with joy, that it is exquisitely heart wrenching to leave this home. Wellesley is so weird and so wonderful. I have learned things here that I could have learned nowhere else. There was a part of me here even before I came three and a half years ago. Despite all the hardship and the musings of regret that inundate my thoughts in these last days, I am proud to say that I think I have found that part of myself. And she’s beautiful.

Even more than finding myself, I have figured out what kind of self I want to find and realized that I will be finding that self day by day forever… it doesn’t happen all at once.

It’s the end of an era. At life-changing turns in life, we are always forced to wonder how we did. Was my Wellesley and college experience all it could be, all I could make it? No, not really at all. But I know it was spectacular in its own right, and I know that as I continue to grow up, I will see more and more clearly and eternally why I was here and what I have learned and what I have contributed.

How did I get to this place in time? Yesterday I was crying my guts out because high school was over. Now, college?? James Taylor said, “the thing about time is that time isn’t really real.” Truth.

I happy to report that finals were enjoyable and satisfying. I learned a lot, I worked pretty hard, and then I handed it all in. It's over. And I feel at peace tonight in this little dorm room with my twinkle lights and my beating heart.


P.s. Yes - the above pictures were taken with self-timer. In my room at 12am. As soon as I emailed in my last paper, I put on my cap and gown and had some fun with my camera in triumph, delight and elation. Do you like my candy cane pajamas?

Comments

  1. congrats. that is so great that you are all done. i am so proud to say that you are my sister and you have just graduated from onw of the great universities of the world.

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  2. Charity, I'll never know how you did all that! I'm sure your grades are terrific BUT just as impressive is that fact that you accomplished sooo much in addition to seizing every day of your exceptionally demanding educational experience! Who would have thought that anyone could also have a fun job, travel into Boston a couple of times a week to volunteer at the Romney office, spend quality time with Saydi and her family as well as babysit there occasionally, attend institute, church and church activites, suck in Boston at every opportunity, take fabulous pictures, express you thoughts so clearly and passionately while writing papers, sutdying for tests and reading volumes! You also somehow found time to make good friends and relish the Wellesley experience with them. Impossible! But you did it! (Plus a lot of other things I probably don't even know about.) Truly
    I am so proud to be your mother!

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  3. this is aja this time. i am so impressed! I am happy and sad for you too! aren't you glad your mission is just around the corner so that you don't have time to dwell on the fact that you are a college graduate?!?!

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  4. cool!you are out of school!exiting!

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  5. Char:
    I LOVED this entry - made me cry - said just how I felt about Wellesley when I finished there - expressed it way better than I ever did. Thanks for helping me relive it all. I'm so proud of you. Reading your entry, I got this image of you in my mind as a little tiny girl in my dorm room in the Crows Nest of Severance, sleeping over. I was so excited to show you off to my friends and give you a taste of the wonders of Wellesley. Where have the years gone! I love you with all my heart and I've been thinking about you and praying for you a lot in the last while as you finished up.

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  6. hi char. write to me on e-mail.ellepothier @ yahoo.com

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  7. CONGRATS! What an accomplishment! I'm so excited for you! Now, you see... if you stretch out your education as long as possible (like me) it won't feel quite as surreal when it's all over! :) That is so great though, and now you're moving on to the mission! I can't wait to see you at your farewell. Good luck with all of the busy things you are doing!!!

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