We Actually Graduated

So it finally happened: after four years at Suffield that somehow flew by, I put on a charcoal three-piece suit, knotted the red-and-white striped tie that basically every guy in my class was wearing, pinned a little white carnation to my lapel, and walked across the lawn to pick up a diploma with my actual name printed on it.

The morning

The whole ceremony was set up out on the hill, rows and rows of white folding chairs facing the big trees, the kind of postcard-perfect New England morning that almost feels staged. I spent most of it grinning like an idiot next to the same guys I've been stuck with since freshman year, all of us in our matching suits trying to look like we'd grown up overnight when really we were just a bunch of kids clutching diploma folders and pretending our hands weren't shaking a little. Somebody's mom kept telling us to stand up straight for the photos, somebody handed me an orange rose, and at some point a celebratory cigar made its way into my mouth because that is apparently the unwritten law of prep school graduations and who was I to argue.

The part that actually hit me

It's a strange feeling when the place that's been your entire world for four years just quietly hands you a piece of paper and says okay, you're done now, go. I kept waiting for it to feel huge and cinematic, and instead it landed soft and a little unreal, like someone had turned the volume down on everything so I could finally hear it. Four years of early mornings and late-night homework and dining hall food and friendships that quietly turned into the kind you actually keep, all of it folding itself down into one sunny afternoon on a hill.

Grateful, again

I keep coming back to how lucky I've been through all of it. I did not get here on my own, not even close, and standing out there in the sun with my friends and that diploma in my hands I just felt this enormous wave of gratitude for every single person who got me to that lawn. God has been so good to me, and graduation was one of those rare moments where you can actually feel it happening in real time.

We did it. Onward to whatever's next.