Graduation

My high school graduation song was called “Graduation,” by an artist known as Vitamin C.

I know... it's so original.

I have to admit that I groaned when it was announced that my graduating class**1 had chosen it by "popular vote" (wherein the popular kids voted and the rest of us let them). The song was cliché, it was preppy and it was a montage of stereotypical high school moments that stereotypical high school types could relate to. Although it set my eyes to rolling about my brainpan, it was an understandable choice for my classmates to sing as they vied for attention on what would probably be the only day of scholastic achievement in their Podunk lives.**2

And so, realizing that this would not be my only day of scholastic achievement, I set my distate aside and learned the damn song.

On graduation day, I stood up and sang:

“And so we talked all night about the rest of our lives:
Where we’re gonna be when we turn twenty-five
I keep thinking times will never change
I keep on thinking things will always be the same.”

I got the experience over with, and I scampered out those swinging double doors. I left my Alma Mater behind me and didn't stop for even a moment. In fact, I didn't even bother to remember Graduation Day as my fifth high school reunion tootled past.**3

I graduated high school in 2005. That was eight years ago this past June. And I haven't wasted time reflecting on it since that day.

But the start of the school year echoed with unsettled resonation in my belly this year.

This is my second autumn during which I haven’t headed back to school. It’s noteable to me now because my most recent alma mater stands between my new home and my workplace: I drive right by it twice a day now, so the increased student activity this week caught my eye (and threw off my commuting schedule).

Last year, it knocked my socks off simply to be part of the world of graduates - I reveled in the new-to-me world of working full weeks (and even time-and-a-half overtime, instead of just extra straight time when I should have been studying) during what had been scholastic semesters. I could keep reading for fun well into the autumn when the weather got cooler and I wanted to stay inside with fresh applesauce and a fun chick lit. I didn't have to abandon my sitcoms in favor of an evening session with Developmental Psychology or Algebra for Almost-Idiots.

This year, it took a sturdier revelation than The Beginning of The School Year to rattle my hosiery. Sure, the fall semester was the catalyst... but that only set in motion the real focus of my unease.

This year, I am 25 years old.

I have survived for one quarter of a century.

I have met all of the biological markers (16 = car; 18 = graduation; 21 = drinking; etc) that society imposed.

I have a beautiful home, a wonderful man to share it with, gainful employment and reasonable health.

I'm officially on my life's path.

No more "I'll get there..."

No more "Next Steps..."

I'm there.

This year, I am the personification of That Future Self that we sang about on Graduation Day.

I mean, of course I've done oodles. But What I Expected and What Came to Pass are two different pictures entirely.

Did I know then that - just weeks before my freshman semester began - I would abandon the college into which I had been accepted in favor of living at home and commuting to the local Technical Institute instead?

No.

Did I know then that I would decide that my first degree wasn't what I wanted to practice for the rest of my life, smack dab in the middle of my final course for that very degree?

No.

Did I know then that the boyfriend I had only just met would propose?

Well... I hoped. Every girl hopes that her high school boyfriend will propose. But I didn't know.

And I certainly didn't know that I would choose to finally leave him less than two years after that proposal and accept that Mister Available - especially Mister Available-In-High-School - is almost never Mister Right.

Nor did I know that Mister Right would mosey into my world just a few months later, right when I had decided that hope didn't have a place in my world anymore.

(Mister Right tried to hide his Right-ness behind exhaustion and Pennsic grime. It didn't work. I found him anyway.)

So it seems the song was right to ask those seemingly pointless questions.

If High School Me had seen a snapshot of me today and had to guess what was behind my future smile, would she have known my story?

Not even a little.

High School Me thought she was destined for an easy, artsy path.

I expected I would become the next interior decorator on Trading Spaces.

I would make oodles of money and my high-school boyfriend would jump at the opportunity to marry me.

I would start producing babies with rapidfire speed, and would seamlessly transform to a successful stay-at-home Mom who kept a fabulously tidy house, fabuolusly tidy children and a fabulously tidy relationship with their father - all while writing childrens' books and poetry out of our guest bedroom/office and making more than I had earned working full time(plus) in the "working world."

High School Me wouldn't have anticipated that I would be hired on in small business eighteen months after high school graduation, that I would sit idly by as the company sold out to a faceless corporation, or that I would continue my toils therein as I approached my seventh anniversary of employment despite my languishing creativity.

High School Me would have been heartbroken to know that my father would never see me march to Pomp and Circumstance again, although he would hug me tight on the day that I finished my Associate's coursework just three short months before he passed away.

High School Me's eyes would have widened questioningly to find my name to be on the paperwork for my first home alongside Mister Amazingness's, and that my signature reflected my birth name instead of a married name. And she would have been confused to find that the third resident was a quadruped instead of a toddler.

But most of all...

High School Me would have passed out cold at the idea that my journals and notepads spent years boxed up and collecting dust. She would have cuffed me to find how poorly I had treated my artistic potential. And she would have walked out of the room when she realized that I allowed writing to fall not just from my list of priorities, but out of my life completely.

Maybe it was the English papers that made me feel so literate in High School. The final years of schooling offer options for Creative Writing instead of just book reports, so no doubt the newfound freedom of my pen felt like fresh air beneath my atrophied wings.

But after high school, writing fell out of my favor.

College got in the way.

Work got in the way.

Life got in the way.

And you know what?

I just sat there and let them.

I knew it wasn't right - I had a couple of journals I would dive half-heartedly into on occasion, typically when things seemed darkest. I would have literary diarrhea, purging whatever was bothering me, and then turning back to "real life" and letting the negativity (and, admittedly, the positivity too - writing isn't only for the brokenhearted...) fester until I popped again.

I knew it wasn't right, but I didn't have time, energy or inclination to make it better.

It was on May 23 in the eleventh iteration of two-thousand that I published my first blog post. I had been free of my broken engagement for almost a full year, and had just completed my second (and final of the immediately-planned) college degree. I was looking for a new creative endeavor, and my neverending tirade against my co-workers and celebrations of my new relationship on my favorite social media site prompted me to start something more organized. The blog just seemed right.

I wrote in that first post that "I never intended for [my corporate position] to be a long-term employment situation. I finished one college career and began another, and still found myself toiling diligently behind the same desk and within the same maze of cubicles as months drifted by in a haze. A few years, experiences, and misunderstandings later, I have changed positions within the company, and the company has changed beneath me. I have grown and changed myself, becoming a very different person from the girl who began with this company so long ago."

I was quite serious.

Corporate shackles weren't how High School Me envisioned my future self, especially at the relatively young age of 25.

In recent years I've come to see them more as golden handcuffs; my distaste with corporate employment overshadowed by my fondness for reliably paying my bills and having a little money left over to live comfortably with Boyfriend of Amazingness, enjoy our hobbies and support my family.

My scholastic revelation this year has led to a serious consideration, though.

What's stopping me from pursuing a career in writing, as I so desperately wish to do?

Of course, the immediate answer is money. Writing doesn't pay. Published works are what pay. And significant time must be spent writing before publicity is gained, and even then publicity does not immediately equate with wealth and riches... which makes tossing aside the handcuffs in favor of my laptop and a lawnchair an irresponsible option.

Irresponsibility just isn't my bag.

Recently, with the purchase of our new home and the introduction of our new four-legged youngun, Boyfriend of Amazingness and I have settled into a wonderful routine of domesticity. Which makes it all the more important for me to get up in the morning and go to work, so that this lifestyle that I so enjoy may continue well into our future together.

But it also makes it all the more difficult.

With a beautiful home, a snuggly Young Master and a loving Boyfriend of Amazingness inside, dragging myself out the door just to pay the bills each day breaks my heart just a little more deeply.

"I could be writing," I think to myself as I drive in to work.

"I could be brainstorming," I consider as I stare blankly at my computer.

"I could be plotting," I sigh as I reach for the ringing phone.

But Could Be didn't get me to my two-hundredth blog post, did it?

Could Be whispered gently that perhaps it was time to put aside the status-quo and reach for something better.

Could Be persuaded me that there were more fitting options.

It worked when I graduated high school and made my way into college.

It worked when I started my blog and finally embraced my creativity.

It worked when we moved out of our apartment and into our beautiful home, committing to one another with our signatures and a dance in our not-yet-moved-into kitchen.

In time, I'm hoping it will work for me again.

Two-double-zero blog posts, my ReaderFriends. Thank you for indulging my whims, catching my tears and sharing my sparkles.

It is my fondest hope that we can forge onward into two hundred more, that the sunshine will far outweigh the grey and that there will always be something shiny to share.

**Sunny Smiles**

**1 Note: Not MY class – just the class I graduated with. My class didn’t graduate until a year later.

**2 I’m not being snippy. I grew up in a Podunk town and went to a Podunk school where there was legitimate concern every year whether all of the seniors would march on graduation day. Moving on to college wasn’t often an option that was taken. Graduating from college was even less likely. There’s a reason I fought tooth and nail to get out early.

**3 Another side-effect of not being "part" of your graduating class, and instead graduating with a group of students a year your senior: They don't think about inviting you to the reunions. And your own class doesn't invite you, because you didn't graduate with them. I suppose it's probably fortunate that I didn't leave any lingering marks upon my high school - Otherwise I'd have to go to homecoming or something.