The New Beginning...

Who are you? No, really, who are you?

Monday was my last day of classes, and I have been asking myself this same question since I drove off campus. 

Who am I?

In two weeks, I will be a college graduate. 

Sixteen years ago, I was a kindergarten graduate. 

Last week, I was just an ordinary girl waiting for my drink at Starbucks. 

I am a sister, a daughter, a cousin, a friend. 

I am a person, trying my best. Trying to find the good even in the worst moments.

I haven’t written in over two months, so I have felt a little phony being called the “writer on campus.” Do these elements of our being ever truly fade, even when we neglect to water the complex intertwining ivy weaving through our chests? 

Sometimes, I still feel like that little kindergartener who was unbelievably excited to wear the most spectacular red and white polka dot graduation dress my five-year-old self could manifest. But then I remember I am a twenty-one-year-old, studying for the LSATs, composing my senior seminar thesis on John Milton’s Paradise Lost, all while trying to keep track of when my car needs to be serviced.  

My unrelenting hope still lives on, though, despite covid, campus closures, and those roadblocks in between that tried to steal the best parts of me. Nonetheless, my affinity for arts and crafts persisted beyond “station time” and even survived through the trenches of soul-crushing prerequisite courses. 

I never let those gut-wrenching classroom oral arguments deter me from pursuing my dreams. Or allow the most abstract economics topics to get the better of me.   

I am who I am.

I’m stubborn, which has helped me in those seemingly impossible classes because I refused to admit defeat. I am analytical, which plagues me every time I listen to music because I can’t help but tear apart every lyric. I like cheesy novels about bakeries and pondering deep existential questions. I like law podcasts, and the cooking channel, and horrible reality television. And I am currently single-handedly trying to bring back high-waisted, flared jeans.  

For a while, the thought of graduating left me with this weird emptiness. 

I couldn't help but wonder, "What now?” while drifting asleep to the sight of the glowing moon coating my bedroom furniture with silken luminescence.

These feelings have since been dispelled. I will always remember my undergraduate education fondly. Hold it in my heart, take a snapshot, love it for what it was, and erase the disappointment of what was denied by having my school get shut down. This wasn't the peak. Not by a long shot.

Regardless of where life takes me beyond college, at least I will always have me. Despite the scary question, “What now?” I am comforted by the thought that no matter where I go, I know it will be bright. And spectacular. And probably marked up with a pretty pink felt tip pen. Because I won’t let myself have it any other way. 

So, if you are afraid of where life will take you after achieving a big milestone, remember, the journey to figuring it out is where your true self can finally shine.

And who are you?

Perhaps, you are simply the most spectacular being.

And perhaps the end is only the beginning of something better than your mind can conceive.