Graduating In An Infinite Present

There's been sooooooo much about this year that I never could've expected- and that's putting it lightly.

I didn't expect so many brutally intimate conversations about personal battles. I didn't expect so much change to come from them, either. 

I didn't expect to break a rib just a week or so after the semester started, or to have a doctor's note handed to me telling me I shouldn't practice yoga for the time being.

I also didn't expect my doctor, immediately after diagnosing me, to ask me if I write. I laughed. I knew he was asking if I was into the whole journalism thing like my mama. "Ha! No," I told him. "I have a personal blog and I journal, but no, I couldn't get into that kind of writing."

He looked at me for a minute, smiled, and said something I haven't forgotten since. "Hey, keep making them proud." I'm still not completely sure who he meant when he said, "them." Maybe my parents, maybe anyone who reads my stuff. Either way, I intend to do exactly that. Doctors orders, after all. 

I didn't expect to not wear makeup for weeks or to kick my caffeine addiction due to quarantine, or to have to pick up my cap and gown curbside. But that's how it's been and that's what happened. 

And I definitely didn't expect to graduate from the university that gave me the best four years of my life with the click of a button in pajama pants on a Tuesday evening and without my family there.

I think that's what has sucked the most lately.

Finally finishing the hardest thing I've ever done, and not being able to celebrate that with the people I love like I'd been looking forward to from my first minutes on campus. 

Especially because this semester was particularly hard. It was hard to adapt to doing everything online and hard to feel like what I was doing was worth anything. It's hard to feel like what you're doing matters at all when it's all being done from a computer in your lap and you can't get any questions answered until people get around to checking their overflowing email inbox. It's hard to separate your work from your home life when it's all happening in the same place for so long that remembering what day of the week it is becomes a task of its own.

But here we are.

I'm slowly trying to piece together a year that I'm determined to make beautiful, regardless of everything I was looking forward to changing form or simply disappearing. So I haven't written in forever because navigating an entirely new "normal" is taking all the heart and emotional energy I have the capacity for each day. It's taken me soooooo long to accept the fact that... that's okay.  

I haven't had enough leftover energy to write, but I've been sure to spend what I can wisely. 

I've spent more time than ever calling my family, writing thank-you notes for little things, making an X with my arms across my chest when I leave in place of hugs so I can keep people safe and still let them know I love them, finding new recipes, supporting small businesses, cleaning my apartment, discovering new music, driving across town for quick lunch dates with my grandma, etc. 

The first time I called her to set one of those lunch dates up, I asked her if she was comfortable with me coming over or if she wanted me to wait it out. 

"It's family," she told me. "They said it's okay to be around your family."

She also told me that she and my grandpa had gone through one of her closets and found one of her old landline phones buried in a box in the back. 

She told me how she had said to throw it out, and how my grandpa had messed with it long enough to get the answering machine to play back all the old messages she had saved.

One of those messages was from 7 year old me.

"Hi it's me, I just called to say I love you, okay bye," was all it said and when I showed up the next day, she played it back for me and then handed me an extra copy my grandpa had already made. 

"He thought you'd like one to keep," she said. And she was so right.

I've listened to it every single time I've gotten in my car to drive anywhere since. Because so much of my future is up in the air and out of reach right now, it feels good to soak into that memory of when things were so simple and so... certain.

Especially given that I have no way to know when things will be back to normal or even if they will.

In the meantime, I'm just gonna say it like it is.

I miss greeting customers at the store I work at on Saturday mornings, picking up an iced coffee from three doors down on the way in and asking people how I can help. I miss listening to their odd little stories that always ended up making me think about life a little differently than I did when I walked in.

I miss being able to clearly keep the days straight. I even miss the traffic of rush hour and the wait times at restaurants, the lines in stores and the nods/thank-yous given to strangers who hold open doors.

I miss the kiddos I babysit and all the things I took for granted with them before life took this turn. I miss teaching them hand games and telling them how proud I am of them for being who they are. I miss them begging for "one more story" before bed... for three or four books before they got halfway tired. Counting down the days until I can hug them again and see if they remember the secret handshakes we spent hours making up.

I miss my morning commute to the county courthouse, setting up for trials and feeling my inner little girl find out what it's like to live a dream. Because when younger me was only 7, that was all she wanted to do. She saw the jail and the courthouse buildings... and all she wanted to do was get closer. All she wanted to do was get her questions answered. Not a lot of people get to where they want to be by the time they're 20, so to be 22 and closer to that than I ever imagined being is the best gift I've ever been given. I'm grateful to get to do a lot of that from home now, but I can't wait to be back. It's just not the same when I'm sitting in the corner of my room. Not nearly as good.

I missed taking my best friend out for her 22 birthday dinner and drinks, but quarantine didn't stop me from making and delivering to her a red velvet cake like I have every year since she came home.

Say what you want, I'll always have the backs of my people. Even when the government orders no contact.

She sent me this photo late that night and told me that her family was loving the cake, which meant everything. It meant that her people were sitting around, sharing dessert and laughing together - despite what's going on in the world, and it felt good to contribute to that. 

Also, this felt good.

I posted this photo to Facebook the night before my first day of freshman year with the caption, "Here come the next four years of my life."

This photo was taken my last day on campus. Those four years were fast and furious. And fun. And full. Full of a lot. A lot of hard things. A lot of great memories. A lot of growth. 

My first day in the Law Enforcement Training Center was a blur - that morning I found out my enrollment hadn't been approved because of a mistake with financial aid. I was running late to my first class that morning, trying to figure out where I was going and what I was doing when I stepped into the elevator and made out-of-breath small talk on the way up with the woman I later discovered was my professor. 

She's since written me two letters of recommendation for jobs, told me to call her cell phone if I decide I want to go to law school, and smiled at me in the hallway every early morning and late night. Without that, without her -- I wouldn't be anywhere near where I am now. 

The same thing goes for these people.

Thank you. So much. For so many things, including talking me into picking up a cap and gown- ceremony or not. Thank you to my dad for taking my graduation photos a couple weeks ago, and to my mom and brother for coming along to help. Thank you for making sure my lipstick wasn't smeared, that my gown was steamed, carrying my clothes, and making sure I'll still have a memorable end to my senior year.  

Thank you for taking selfies and laughing with me for a couple hours that night, giving me a last great memory in the place that's already given me so many.

This is a very weird time to be leaving what became so familiar and comfortable to me. The world is going through something it never expected and I never expected to get thrown into. I'm living in a seemingly "infinite present" right now, because I have no idea what's coming or how to plan for anything. For the first time in too long, I'm living moment by moment instead of trying to constantly keep up with the next thing on my to-do list. 

Tomorrow is my official graduation. I'll officially have my Bachelors of Science in Criminal Justice with a minor in Psychology. That too will happen at the click of a button from my laptop, like everything else has for the past few months. 

The plan was for me to take the day off, sit in Charles Koch Arena for the last time, walk across the stage and then spend the evening with the family who would've flown and driven thousands of miles to be here for that. With me. For me. 

I would've been hugging them tight for the first time in years and the laughs wouldn't have stopped until hours and hours after dark. 

But plans change in the midst of a pandemic. 

Best of Times, the shop I've worked at on Saturdays since I was 16, is open for business again - so that's where you'll find me instead and I'll be happy about it. I'll be even happier if you visit. 

That's as far into the future as I can plan for at the moment, but it's enough for me. That's enough normal to cling to for the time being. 

Thank you again.

To my family who have been supportive through this.

To my bosses who have let me continue to work for them.

To Wichita State for preparing me for the real world so well that a global pandemic hasn't gotten in my way.

Thank you for letting me be Education Chairman for Kappa Kappa Gamma. 

Thank you for my initiation into Sigma Alpha Pi and to that chapter for giving me so much. 

Thank you for letting me write and report for The Sunflower. 

Thank you for letting me play a role in the Criminal Justice Student Association. 

Thank you for the jail tour, where I found exactly what I want to do with my life.

Thank you to my supervisor at work who answered my last minute 11 p.m. call and gave me that day off so I could take advantage of that chance.

Thank you for being where I fell in love with my best friend. 

Thank you for letting me be a content creator and editor for The Odyssey Online. 

Thank you for giving me long nights, early mornings and accepting me when I messed up. 

Thank you mostly though, for all the lessons. 

The degree is one thing. The diploma is a piece of paper. The graduation ceremony is one day. 

Not that none of those matter, because they do and I worked hard for that -- but when I compare those things to everything I gained in my four years... I can't. 

I didn't come for the piece of paper. I came for an education. 

I came to grow, to find my passion, to find myself. 

All of those things happened, plus so much more. 

So I'm choosing to focus on that. 

On the good. 

My heart still hurts to think about what could've been, but it's whole too.

Because (at least for now) I get to put the textbooks away and really live. 

In the present.

Not in what was. Not in what might be. In what IS.

and here's to whatever comes.

I'm ready.