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- What experience did you miss out on and wish you'd been a part of? See all answers
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- August 2, 2009 by briarcat
- I missed my college graduation
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Success! - Undergrad Graduation
Normal kids go wild the day they leave the nest. They settle down sometime in their second year, or third, gain weight for a bit and learn the steps to adulthood even if they're not proficient in the dance.
I started fat (my mother called me "fleshy" and that's one Crayola color I abhor). I was shy and self-absorbed, read constantly, wrote poetry and lived in a constant state of crush. I lusted chastely after half the males I knew and never interacted. I limped through college, never quite engaged in classes, either, passing.
Until the summer. Between my junior and senior years, I altered. I spent those months in what amounted to camp. Like the apocryphal basketweaving major, I played and earned credits for Summer Theater, ceramics, and tennis. I learned how to flirt, and how to drink (or how not to), started smoking, and got my first kiss when I was twenty-one.
And that's the way I spent my senior year, the first time.
My roommate of three years never talked to me after I stumbled through her wedding.
It took an extra three semesters to finish all the incompletes. And about five years to settle down.
I never had a graduation.
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briarcat
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When faced with the question to go to graduation or not, it was easy for me to say no. My parents couldn't understand and we fought about it a lot. "Every normal person wants to be at their graduation, what's wrong with you?" The degree from that particular institution meant nothing to me. After 3 years I made a few friends but I never felt apart of the school. I also knew I wanted to go to law school. I would have another graduation but I viewed this future law school graduation as something to look forward to because it would be untainted by my family.
Anyway, I don't mean to launch into my life story. It's been a year since graduation and I still don't regret not showing up for my diploma. As if I haven't sounded bratty enough, had I been granted my wish to stay at the original university I attended, I wouldn't have wanted to miss that graduation for the world.
In college, I was happy to skip the pomp and circumstance. Checked with my parents first who said fine. Afterward they complained about my "depriving them".