Why you feel invisible to the graduates

It’s going to become a stronger and more apparent feeling so let me break this down because I have experienced your position before and I’m in the graduate position now.

Come May, the class of 2016 will be graduating.

Come May, anyone not graduating will be watching their close friends walk across the stage.  And those graduates will be more focused on leaving each other than leaving you.

But here’s why. And I had this realization only recently…. but all of you will still be here at college.  We know you’ll be here and what your schedule is going to be like and how to get in touch with you.  We know that we can come back and find you here and there is comfort in that.  It’s not that we won’t miss you.  We don’t know where anyone else will be or if we’ll get to see each other again.  Yes that fear is there for you too, but there’s a security in knowing that you will still be at our alma mater.

Is that making sense?

The other thing you have to realize is that while we are stressing over everything we have to do and try to be, you are all making plans that we will not get to be a part of.  Ever.  And that starts earlier than the graduation hype starts.

My friends and I have a rule, as I have mentioned, that we don’t talk about graduation. So while we all know it’s there and we are trying to make the most of out of every day, it is everyone else that is making plans without us, as if we are already gone.

And this shit hurts too.  Only we start feeling that at the start of the second semester.  Graduation stuff doesn’t start until finals in May.  So stop and think about that for a second.  While you are coping with us leaving and already getting excited for the next year, we are passing our torches onto you and watching you begin to forget about us already.

At least… that’s how it feels.

We work really really hard to embrace college because mid-way through senior year we start to feel it slipping out of fingers and we get the images of what life is going to be like afterwards.  You can pretend to know what the feels like, but when it comes down to it the other seniors are the only ones who truly get it.  So when people make plans and don’t follow through, we get stressed because we are running out of time.  And it’s fucking scary.

Try to push away your anxiety about us leaving the same way we are pushing away ours and lets just fucking enjoy these last few months together.

The Graduation Countdown

We have a rule amongst my friend group.  Graduation doesn’t exist.  Not yet.  Anytime anyone (but especially my roommate or I) makes the mistake of addressing it the response is, “No! Shut up! Not yet!”

We have even set a rule: we don’t talk about it or allow ourselves be sad about it except for one or two designated times until late April.  Then and only then are we’re allowed to freak out.

We can’t talk about it because it’s too real and it hurts too much.

I don’t want to face that fact that I won’t return to the first place that I really felt like I belonged.  I don’t want to accept the fact that I won’t be getting into shenanigans with all of my friends that have yet to graduate.  And I can’t stand that fact of not living with my roommate.  She was out of town for a few days and it was way too hard, but an undesignated period of time not seeing each other?!  It doesn’t exist.  Not yet.

But all of sudden all of that shit is being shoved in my face and I don’t know what to do with it.  I’ve been reminded to live in the moment and hold onto every second.  At the same time I’m supposed to look at the future and plan and grasp all of that too.  I can’t do both!  I only have two fucking hands!  And… I’m not ready to leave!  *sigh Holy Shit…

The future is too real my friends.