The End

Your stupid hat is falling off, your hands are full and of course, you’re in front with the banner, so everyone is taking pictures of you.

Great.

After the finally let you sit, you stare at the stage and hear a buzzing in your ears. This is one of those landmark moments of your life, but all you can think about is how hot you are in this stupid black gown, and the fact that you are sweating, and you borrowed your sister’s dress, and she will probably kill you.

Your family is waving behind you for even more pictures. You make a face at them. The Ithaca Journal catches you and puts it on their front page. When your roommate texts you this, you spend a moment with your forehead on a table. Your family, however, is incomprehensibly thrilled. To them, you will always look great. You will love them for this but enjoy having something tangible to scowl about for awhile.

The ceremony goes like this: congratulations you did it congratulations but sorry the economy is bad but don’t worry you’re prepared roll with the punches everything will be fine take risks listen to your parents don’t listen to your parents here are some fancy Ithaca balloons you’re hot? we’re in the shade on the stage, move your tassle over, awkward blessing for a secular institutions, congratulations grads, you may now stampede out of the stadium.

During it, you of course take more in, but you are so darn hot it’s hard to concentrate, and all you can really think about is how little you’ve packed. And how little you want to pack.

You weave your way through the massive crowds by yourself to the meeting place for the Politics department, where you will eventually find your family. This is the first time you have been alone for a while, and it’s the last time you’ll be alone for a week or two following. You breathe in and out, trying to feel different. You walk down past the Hill Center and remember.

It’s sophomore year, and your new roommate is taking a scary plunge with you. You’re joining a team. This means a swim test to make sure you don’t drown in a lake. In your bathing suits, flip flops and gym shorts you run across campus because it is pouring rain. You’re gasping for air because neither of you run, ever, but also because you are laughing so hard. You have no idea, but you just found a friend who will quite literally change the path of your life. She will also tell you many inappropriate jokes, and not find having an entire drawer dedicated to Oreos weird. She will give you better advice than any PhD on that campus and will have no idea how great she really is.

You arrive at Emerson Suites, where you beeline to the water table and toss back three cups in about 5 minutes. You don’t feel as dizzy anymore. You take off that irritating hat. Your family arrives, and you take many pictures until people get sick of taking pictures. You go to the grad party at your roommate’s house.

In many ways, this place is home. You’ve spent holidays and weekends there, eaten many a delicious dinner, played with the puppies, napped on the floor in front of the television. Now your real family is with your Ithaca family, and the tightness in your chest tells you that this is great, but that it also signals some sort of ending. At this house you will be dragged into a wiffle ball game with your best friends. Your best friends run around screaming in dresses, and you have never ever loved them more.

You are a person who treasures time alone. Maybe you’re not the most social of butterflies. (You also hate butterflies, because you seem to be the only one to realize they are CATERPILLARS WHO CAN FLY. This is beside the point, though. Sorry). But with them you never felt stifled or trapped. They were more than family, even. They are more than family. They are a part of you and stay that way.

The next morning, somehow everything is shoved into boxes. It is so hot. When everything has been magically stuffed into the tiny white hatchback, you go back inside and feel your insides breaking apart. As you hug these amazing women, your face grows hot and you ugly cry. They are tiny and you know you probably shouldn’t crush them. You hug them tight anyway.

Out the door, you walk up to the car, packed full of family, ready to leave. You ask for a handful of tissues and a minute. You lean against the back of your grandparent’s car and sob unabashedly into your hands. This has to be the worst feeling in the world and you will remember this, the public sob-fest, as clearly as you remember the run in the rain. For it to hurt this badly, it had to be something amazing.

Four years ago, you shipped off. And it was scary, hectic, stressful, comical, beautiful, painful, difficult, quiet, loud, messy and clean. You shipped off and it was wonderful.