As some of you may know, I dreaded college graduation for more than two years before it happened. I'd been a student of some sort my whole life up until that point (at least the part that I remember), and outside of a few temporary work positions in school I'd never really had a job. Needless to say, being jettisoned into the real world scared me.
As others of you may know, in many ways post-college life has been the best for me. I actually had a job for part of that time, which was nice, but more importantly I've been the most social in my life in the last two-plus years. (Um, let's make that two years, minus a month maybe.) Something about this whole development thing, plus the pact I'd made with God five-some years ago about being the person he'd wanted me to be. This growth/development thing has been a process, and unfortunately I wasn't going to reach the summit or anywhere close to it while I was still in school.
But no matter. Part of this development has been my awareness about things in life, whether immediate or distant, personal or public. In other words, it's something that never would have happened if I hadn't gotten off the bubble.
Ah yes, that bit of woulda-been controversy. A classmate of mine delivered a speech at graduation about how St. Olaf isn't a bubble. Why? Because they've been very good about exposing us to what's going on in the world, i.e. news, opportunities, that sort of thing. Therefore, because of the things that were just listed, St. Olaf isn't a bubble.
I basically kept thinking "what?" as I was listening to this speech. OK, certainly, we're not ignorant of what goes on in the world or our own community, but many of us aren't present in the world to really experience it. The fact is that most of us spend the vast majority of our time on a campus doing things that college students do, and quite frankly we don't have time to be in the real world unless we decide that's the most important thing. There's a difference between watching a ballgame on TV and going there in person. What St. Olaf offered was akin to watching a ballgame on TV. The only way we could be considered "not in a bubble" is if we were watching it in person, which, as a BM Theory-Comp major, I didn't have the time to undertake such opportunities. Big difference.
[I might add, working as an extra in a movie and seeing folks like Ron Howard, Vince Vaughn, Kevin James, Winona Ryder and the rest in person made what would otherwise be a "magical" experience (i.e. watching and knowing something via the TV) seem real and mundane. One scene I was sitting out, I got to actually tune in to the dialogue that was going on and notice the minute differences between each take. I took in the whole creative acting/filming process from a technical standpoint in what they were trying to accomplish. To be honest, the whole experience just felt like another day at the office. It just so happened that Vaughn and Howard happened to be co-workers or bosses or something. It was still a cool experience in all, but everything just became more humanized.]
The night before graduation, some friends of mine (Pat, Kevin, Austin... don't remember who else was with us) and I camped out in Kevin's room and just chatted about what it was like being done with college. I don't know about other schools, but at St. Olaf they have a tradition of setting out lanterns (each one has a graduating senior's name on the ribbon attached to it) across the green during Senior Week, and then the night before graduation we find our own, light them, pick them up, and ultimately take them home. I recall we spent the rest of the night in Kevin's darkened room lit exclusively by our lanterns. It was rather eerie, almost like the last night of summer camp, where brothers who had bonded over the course of time would suddenly be sent to their separate homes across the region.
The morning after graduation, I remember heading out to the ball fields with Kevin to play some catch, and I recall he commented something about the last thing we ever do as college students is play catch. It made sense to me, given that this was how I spent a good chunk of the fun part of my childhood. I suppose at the time it meant more to him, cherishing those last moments and truly making them worthwhile, but as the years have begun to roll by I'm starting to look back and really see their value for myself.
I recall returning to Chicago later that evening utterly confused about where I was and where I thought I was supposed to be. What was this thing people called home? I sure as hell didn't know. It kinda seems ironic that the last two months I was in school I was ready to get the heck out of there. I was done. And now my wish was granted. Huh?
I still wanted to get back to Minnesota. As my Chicago-area friend Jeremiah had commented at the time, I indeed was "gung-ho" about returning north. Nothing against Chicago, but when the majority of people I knew and wanted to be with was elsewhere (i.e. Minnesota), that's where I was going to go.
I just realized something: I don't know how to end this post. That's the problem with stories that don't have endings... yet.