A College Graduate

 Just yesterday I remember sitting on the floor of your soon to be nursery, listening to lullabies and crying. Crying with joy and because I was so overwhelmed. 

I had no idea what was in store for us on the journey ahead. But I knew that I loved you with every part of my being. The journey isn't over and neither is yours and my heart is so full of love and pride I think it may burst. I will write more about this later. But for right now I want to share sweet Elsie's reflections.

NOTE:  PHOTOS ARE FROM HER FRESHMAN MOVE IN DAY.

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There are changes that occur when you grow that no one tells you about. Things that individually stay small but eventually add up to feel catastrophic. When you’re a child no one tells you that soda turns into alcohol, bikes become cars, hugs turn into kisses which hold the possibility of leading to something more. When I was younger sitting on my dad’s shoulders was the highest place on earth. The biggest problem I faced was trying to get the whiffle ball out of the nettles that lined the fence of my back yard without the itchy white bumps that were guaranteed when you brushed against their leaves. War was only a never-ending card game and the most pain I ever felt was from a scrapped knee. Oh, the irony that I see when I realize that I couldn’t wait to grow up.

College has ended almost as quickly as it started. I am left to ask the simple question, “where to now”? The transition from the education system that I have spent the past 18 years in to the real world is daunting to say the least. You have so many ideas in your head, plans that you were so certain would come to fruition and instead you are met with chaos and the realization that the world is so far out of your control.

I couldn’t wait to grow up. I was always looking forward, years down the road. Growing up was funny though because I never actually felt older. When I was a kid in the summer, I had nannies, who were in high school. They were 16 years old and lived in my neighborhood; they had a car and a boyfriend. I thought they were so cool, and I couldn’t wait to be their age and be that grown up. Well, I turned 16, I got a car, and a boyfriend and it was nothing like 5-year-old me thought it would be. I realized that at 16 I didn’t feel grown up and I definitely wasn’t. At 16 I had friends that were leaving and going to college and I couldn’t wait till I got there. I thought surely when I was in college, I would feel older, feel like an adult. Well, I went to college and it was nothing like 16-year-old me thought it would be. I definitely had more freedom than when I was high school, but in many ways that freedom showed me just how easy it was to be irresponsible. Even with the freedom I didn’t exactly feel like an adult. During college I nannied the sweetest little boy, the two years I was with him he was in 2^nd and 3^rd  grade. He used to say to me, “Elsie, you’re an adult because your old but you’re not a grownup because you aren’t old old”. I chuckle thinking back to these conversations because somehow this 7-year-old cutie knew exactly how to describe what I was feeling. I thought surely when I graduate college, I would feel older, I would finally be a real adult. Well, here I am about to graduate college with a double major and a minor (not so humble brag, I know. But come on, I worked hard) and it is nothing like 18-year-old me thought it would be. I don’t just mean because I am graduating college in the second year of a global pandemic.

While I do not feel the way that I once thought that I would after graduating college, in many ways, I do feel older. I feel older because my life is so much richer than it was four years ago. I have built relationships, lived experiences, and battled through hardships that I will carry with me for the rest of my life. I have had some of my greatest successes and some of my biggest failures. I have loved and I have lost, but above all I have grown. See now I realize that when I was younger, I was placing the emphasis on the wrong word. Life is not about growing UP but rather about simply growing.

My time in the classroom is ending, at least for now, but that doesn’t mean my education is ending. I will stop learning when I stop breathing, then and only then. My instruction has taught me tolerance, its has taught me how to bounce back from countless failures, it has helped me be more openminded, it has given me a passion, a passion to do well for myself but more importantly to do good for this world. College has shown me who I am, and I have to believe that even though 5-year-old me would be disappointed that I was wrong time and time again she would be proud of how far we have come and how far we are going to go. If I could tell my younger self anything it would be that being grown up isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

So here I am, a 21-year-old college graduate, an adult that’s still learning and still growing. Behind me lie all my memories, ideas, and thoughts of how the world works. Before me are all of my dreams for myself and the world. Around me are all the people who love me and who I love right back. Lastly within me, I have everything I need to move forward in love, kindness, grace, and goodness.