To the Class of 2020
“I feel for you. Particularly you Seniors. Education is not supposed to happen like this. It definitely should not end like this,”
To the class of 2020, particularly the Sarah Lawrence class of 2020, please reach out if you need anything. Even if you just want someone to talk to. I cannot give you all the time. I will give you time.
This isn’t how Graduating is meant to happen. After four-ish years of managing academics, career, health, and a social life—everything’s switched off. Okay, I’m exaggerating about the social life. All the final moments that were supposed to happen, just won’t. At least not in the expected way. Maybe for you that’s commencement. Maybe it’s a formal or a theater production. There was something that mattered to you if you choose to admit it or not. For me, it was simply watching one more spring pass through a surprisingly beautiful urban campus.
Writing in my not-so cozy wooden chair, I have no right to complain. Many of my peers don’t have the luxuries that I do. Some had to scramble to find places to live or returned to homes that aren’t safe. Other’s have family with the virus or have it themselves. Many weren’t sure what they would do after graduation sans-pandemic. The universe threw down a gauntlet saying, “Figure yourself out now kid.”
Good luck friends.
And, I get to work with my favorite people while safe, well-fed, and warm. I’m fully aware of the injustice in that. There are things that I am grateful for beyond measure.
This still feels…wrong?
I started writing this because I don’t have words to describe how I feel. I have been harrowed, but that is it. I’m not relived that my college experience is over. I quite enjoyed it. Since Promac International, Commencement, and my personal end of the era celebration are either canceled or unrecognizable—I should be sad. I’m not.
I don’t feel ready either. You’d think after years of work, I would know what I’m doing. My resume once had that tagline Professional Idiot, and not much has changed except that I don’t need a resume anymore. I’ve blundered into all my greatest successes.
I accidentally-ed my way through my most significant life-moments.
I just feel. Why must it be named?
I just feel.
This isn’t meant to happen. Well, nothing is meant to happen. Every screen has someone shouting about how devastating now is. It’s terrible for the workers, the students, the elderly. Let’s be real, this moment is difficult. It is also the moment that is present-at-hand. This moment is.
Those four years of college also weren’t supposed to happen. The only difference between me and the kid that drops out of high school is that I had many privileges on the way. That dropout is a statistic and they say I have potential. I’m not sure who they are. It does sound good though.
That kid who drops out is human. He has potential. Yeah, I worked hard, but I also had mentors who dragged me along the way. Often with an unreasonable amount of patience. And my family—at least eventually—has been down for every one of my crackpot ideas.
It was only four years ago that I was graduating high-school.
That teenager couldn’t recognize me today. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still a goofy, dorky, awkward-duck who likes tech and literature. There is still an ungodly amount of hobbit-lore in my brain. Teenage me would be stoked if he knew I would be looking in the mirror one day. I just don’t believe that he’d be able to imagine what four years really can do.
In four years:
I’ve made friends, lost friends, rekindled old friendships and lost those. Relatives have passed, including the first person to support my move to teach martial arts. I never did thank him for that. I’ve studied German Lit, Medieval lit, Film, Psychology, Philosophy, Creative Writing, Film Editing, Ancient Greek, and I even took a non-required statistics class.
Who knows how many road trips I’ve been on? Shout out to Alex Tanner for being the impetus for my social life. We have been upstate and to Shenandoah in the snow. The memories we’ve made—without really trying—will make a good story one day.
I became a Summer Camp director at twenty and didn’t burn down the building. Thank-you Sa Ba Nim.
I bet none of that was meant to happen.
I wish it didn’t happen in my time. “But that is not for [me] to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” (Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring)
If I am this lucky, I must do something.
I usually say my personal mission is to, “build one million, highly effective people.” That’s mostly a challenge to myself to aim higher. The truth is—if I can manage to provide two people with the better footing that I had, that would be enough. Maybe one of them will do something outstanding.
This wasn’t meant to happen, yet the moment is.
I’m certainly still a blithering, bumbling fool most days.
I feel, therefore I am.
I am.