Commencement

I’ve tried to write for weeks, but I’ve hardly written a word since my last assignment was due. The last few weeks of school were so busy that I felt like I was running daily marathons. Everything I tried to write felt too sentimental. Everything was sentimental. 

I graduated last Wednesday. Most of my friends didn’t, because they wanted more time to work on their theses. It was the smart decision for anyone who planned to stay in New York anyway. But I was determined to graduate in May all along, determined to prove the professors wrong who told me no second-years walked in May—that would mean turning my thesis in in March, which most people thought was preposterous. “What’s the rush?” people kept asking. But I wanted to be done. I wanted to wrap things up neatly and walk away at he end of the school year. I wanted to start a full time job in the fall that I’d need an advanced degree to get. And I wanted out of New York. Two years, I told myself the spring before last when I accepted Columbia’s offer. Two years and I’ll go to a place I’d rather be. 

What I didn’t know was that in those two years, I’d find a community of friends unlike any I’d ever been a part of. I didn’t know that I’d be one of the only ones to leave the city once classes were over. Brown launched us ceremoniously into the world once our four years were up. Columbia expects us to linger. 

I had my thesis conference a few weeks ago and one of my readers, a former professor, hugged me goodbye and whispered in my ear, “You’re gonna get this published, and you’re gonna get a job.” Which is exactly what our professors are warned against saying, but it’s sometimes what we need to hear. Then there was our Thesis Anthology Launch (aka prom) which was exactly what prom is supposed to be. Full of friends, nostalgia, and painful shoes. There were reunion parties, BBQ parties, dinner parties, after parties—any excuse for us to be together while we were all still in one place.

 I spent the last couple of weeks saying a lot of goodbyes that I didn’t want to say and a lot of see-you-laters when I didn’t want to say goodbye. I got my MFA. I left my roommate/best friend alone in what I will always think of as “our” apartment. I packed up my room and loaded it into a U-Haul and drove to Mississippi with my family. 

People keep asking “What now?” All of my belongings are in boxes squeezed wherever they can fit throughout my living room and kitchen because there are too many to fit in my bedroom. My bed is propped against the wall in my hallway. I don’t want to unpack anything because I don’t know when I’ll be leaving next. 

The last couple of months have been full of interview after interview, then second interviews, then silence. Repeat. All I can do is keep waiting. I sent in some last minute applications for jobs in New York. Not because I think I made a mistake in leaving, but because I want the option of changing my mind. So my answer is that I don’t know. But for now I’ll repack the boxes, this time with bubble wrap, and keep waiting until I know the answer.