Graduation Day Reflection

There is something I still can’t get over. And this is my attempt to capture it in words:

May 21, 2008

I was in the apartment by myself. Most of my furniture moved to the new apartment in SF. And I am sitting in this bare apartment empty of furniture and full of echoes with the morning light streaming through the windows. I put on the inky black gown. Around my neck I placed the Filipino stole – the stole that is red on one end, blue on the other, the middle is white, and embellished with stars to represent the Philippine flag. And I take in my hand the cap about which hangs the ’08 tassle and raise it to the top of my head and affix with bobby pins. I take a look at one of the remaining pieces of furniture of mine in the apartment- a mirror that is leaning against the wall. And in that moment I see myself in cap and gown with the Filipino stole around my neck. And even though I have curled my hair and put on makeup- these compare naught to the image of a proud graduate: who receives a Bachelor’s degree from the University of California at Berkeley; a first generation Filipino American college graduate.

This moment has occurred before when I walked last year in Zellerbach Theatre. Last year, it was fun, bittersweet, and not just a little ironic. I walked with my fellow Sociology graduates because I was done with my Sociology major. I had one year left to finish my American Studies degree. However, last year that moment was slightly anticlimactic. I had one year left of school. College wasn’t quite over yet.

This year, I gazed into the mirror and I didn’t see myself in a cap and gown- I saw the culmination of 5 years of will, determination, and growth form this person who I barely recognized from 5 years prior. How do you sum up relief, joy, sadness, excitement, fear all in a moment? I do not know, but that moment did. One emotion triumphed over all of them though- that of joy. And that lightness and happiness I felt made every negative emotion I went through college worth it. Tears, sleepless nights, months and months of stress and anxiety, and questioning myself to the point where I reduced myself to someone who was worthless were all erased and lifted by this moment. I felt validated. The glow of accomplishment is transformative.

And the graduation ceremony was a mixture of new and old: anticlimactic that I had done this before, but climatic all the same because I was graduating in the Greek Theatre. The Greek is a concrete construction that is filled with years of university pride such as bonfires, rallies, concerts, and graduations. And as I felt that I was walking across a piece of history- I was also making history. I changed the history of my family and future family to come. I walked across the stage and I saw my family and friends. I shook with my right and grabbed the diploma* with my left.

Yet that lightness of feeling was also tinged with the weight of responsibility. I had already accomplished something great. Yet, there is the expectation that I will continue to do far greater things still. And for one who feels so old and so young at the same moment- that is a heady feeling. This is a feeling full of excitement and possibility. How do you feel light and heavy at the same time?

And so here I sit in my childhood bed in my childhood home. Back to reality and grounded by the day to day. I have seen my grades from this last semester, I know for sure that I have indeed obtained a BA from Berkeley. I keep that day and that moment in mind because that marked the end of one era of my life and the beginning of another.

*not actually a diploma, because those are sent later on in the semester following your graduation. But a diploma for me just the same.