After this quarter, I’m done.
I have already begun to receive commencement e-mails stating upcoming filing deadlines and appointments I need to keep.
In April I get to be rid of these godawful braces once and for all.
In June I get to take part in the commencement ceremony that I’ve watched them set up for the past two years with envious eyes. When will my time come?
This quarter marks the end of all my requirements and necessary units. But due to my failed eagerness to study abroad I’ll have one last quarter to fill with unnecessary electives, just for kicks. That’s when I came across and beginning book arts class where I’ll learn to bind a book, as well as typesetting and letterpress. I’m also taking a Psychology elective that I know damn well would look good on a future Psych resume but I can’t help feeling like I’m taking it more for show than anything else.
That book arts class though? Yeah. That feels right. I take immense pleasure and pride from making something with my own two hands. I just do. The act itself of creating is a therapeutic process in which I become so engrossed in what I am doing that nothing else could possibly matter. My Psych of Happiness professor called that phenomena “flow.”
Recently all of my best friends came out with excellent and surprising news that inevitably ended with all three of them moving up to Nor Cal rather shortly and unexpected. I’m happy for them, fuck am I happy and proud of these people that I’ve shared my best and worst moments with. I’m so proud of their success and that they’re following their dreams, that they’re growing up so wonderfully right before my eyes.
But behind my cheers and grins, inside I could feel my panic rising. What are you doing that’s worth cheering? I keep having this feeling rise up that I haven’t accomplished that I have wanted to, that I am not quite what I always anticipated I’d become. This feeling of being lost and not knowing what I’m doing next. Then I have to slow it down (my breathing, usually, to stop the surmounting panic attack that’s about to extinguish my reasoning), and remind myself not of where I am but of where I’m going.
I’m graduating soon. I will have earned my Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology from UC Riverside.
I’m hard on myself, yes. I know that I’m capable of more, that I should have finished earlier, that I should have done better. But fuck it. Why live in the shoulda, coulda, woulda’s? I did what I could and the finish line is within my horizon and I get to easily traipse across it now.
Now I’ll be able to focus more on what feels right, anyway, without fear. I’ll have the advancement of my degree to pursue in the not-too-distant future but for now I want to focus on me, on my needs, and on creating, on exploring, on adventures.
My friends might acknowledge that I’m always throwing out random ideas to visit far-away places. Which of course no one can afford, always to my chagrin. But that’s okay.
I always find a way.
