How do you put a day into words?
How do you express that feeling of the ending of years of work?
How do you encapsulate the completion of a goal into an almost thousand-word description or even a picture whose value is often esteemed greater than words?
You start at the beginning. I’ve heard it’s a very good place to start.
The Extension School’s Coat of Arms
I took my first class at Harvard Extension School in Summer 2020. The world was falling apart and I was beginning something new and exciting. Something that hadn’t yet* been altered.
*It would, however. Many of my sweet classmates would have to complete their summer residencies online rather than in person due to the pandemic.
There is too strong a focus in our world on the prestige of a name rather than on the quality of the experience. Though, yes, this post is about a Harvard education and graduation, the choice to attend Harvard had nothing to do with the name and everything to do with the options this school presented me.
My criteria were two:
- The school either needed to be located close to home or be an adequate online education
- No required GRE scores* or recommendation letters**
*I love continuing education. I do not love having to spend time and money to take a nonrelated test in order to qualify for it.
**In 2020, it had been fourteen years since my under-grad days. Who was I going to get to recommend me?
The entry process for a degree in Creative Writing & Literature from Harvard Extension School wasn’t exactly simple, and I had several classmates who struggled with it, but it was perfect for me. Simply put: you need to pass two classes, with limited attempts, to matriculate into the program. I decided two classes would be a good gauge of whether I wanted or needed to pursue such a degree. By my second class, I knew I was in the program that made sense for me.
It was my first time really having anyone read my fiction. It was an incredibly vulnerable place to be in—and the teachers and classmates I encountered couldn’t have been better.
With classmates, now friends, Holli and Alison, waiting to graduate.
I’ve read so many books and graphic novels and short stories and poems.
I’ve compared myself to other writers and sworn I’d never be as good.
I’ve had a professor use my work as an example of good writing throughout her PowerPoint presentation alongside examples from published authors.
I’ve cried over Kafka.
I’ve found therapy in creating my own graphic novel.
I’ve dropped a course on Greek heroes.
I’ve written a poem in the style of Sylvia Plath.
I’ve cursed Walt Whitman and his leaves of grass.
I’ve completed a middle-grade novel and two women’s fiction novels.
I’ve been told I can write horror, much to my surprise.
I’ve watched as others succeeded in their 9-5 jobs and corporate positions and felt my worth diminish.
I’ve had a teacher at the first critiquing session of my short story say to the class, “What’s an ‘A’ paper look like? It looks a lot like this.”
I’ve struggled again and again and again with calling myself a writer.
I’ve heard the words, “You are a writer,” firmly said.
It’s the thing of catching waves upon the sand and holding moonbeams in your hand that keeps me from being able to explain how even the difficult parts of the above will be treasured. They are each so uniquely written within me in feelings and phrases and flashes of light—all which will one day slip from my reach.
So, while I can hold them, I’m doing my best to memorialize them.
The experience of being on campus in a cap and gown with my graduate hood tugging at my throat all day was necessary—and I almost skipped it. Initially, it was a no brainer. Of course, I was going to go to graduation. Then, I learned there would be something like 30,000 people on Harvard Yard and started panicking. Then we got another dog—and are still working, now with a trainer, to get her and Stitch to be best friends. Then, I saw the price of the hotel I stayed at during residency not double, not triple, but quadruple in price.
I decided not to go.
It was when I learned Tom Hanks was the commencement speaker that I realized I might be giving up something kind of important, something I’d scroll through social media later and feel a gut punch over.
I never thought I would still be learning who I am in adulthood—but I am, and suspect I will continue learning about myself for the rest of my life. I’ve recently learned that I will downplay and downplay and downplay anything and everything I do, deeming it not a big deal, not something even worth talking about, until I consider it big enough to be worth talking about.
And that is no good. We need to embrace all the moments—big and little.
I can’t capture the feeling I had on graduation day in words or pictures. There is no glossy image or flowery description I can provide to explain this. What I know is that for me I needed to be there. To know I’d completed the job. To know it was a big deal—birthed from many little moments. To spend a day feeling and acknowledging it.
My take away from the past three years, other than a lot of progress in my writing life, is that the snapshot others see of what you do for a living doesn’t matter. That whether you make a million dollars or are paid in smiles you can equally find happiness and despair. What matters is embracing those indescribable feelings when you’re doing what you love. Those moments in time when you can hardly breathe from the joy of knowing you are where you’re meant to be.
That’s what I felt on graduation day.
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