Commencement

Three years ago, I wrote a post about packing up all my remaining school stuff into a cardboard box. Putting thirteen years of education and accomplishment into one tiny space. And I was freaking out about being able to reduce all my hard work to that. I wondered what it meant that everything which seemed to be important was so small.

I don't know that I could, from the future, tell my past self anything about the size of accomplishments, or qualm fears about the meaninglessness of being left with nothing but a box to show for thirteen years of work and life. But what I can say now is that what we do in life is a lot bigger than what lives on paper as some singular record of what we've done.

There's no way to put what we learn in a box. There's no way to put the value of friendship into a box, or onto a piece of paper with a grade or an award. College has widened my vision so far beyond paper.

I thought about that when I looked at my brother's diploma - or rather his diploma cover. IMSA did the same thing my high school did, which is at the ceremony you get handed the fancy-looking embossed cover for your diploma, but the diploma gets mailed to your house later. After they've made sure you're not going to fuck anything up and they know for sure they're not revoking your right to graduate or whatever. So even in this big, supposedly important ceremony, this great symbol of accomplishment is false. The piece of paper (that you don't even have yet) means very little.

Next year I'll graduate from NYU. I'll get a diploma that says I went to Tisch School of the Arts and, if things continue on their current course, it'll say I graduated with honors. But there's no way to fit onto that piece of paper all the achievements of anyone who graduates from Playwrights, or any other truly unique and rigorous and holistic intensive program. So I don't care much for paper. I have three manila envelopes full of all of my awards from my time in school before college. I never look at them, and to be honest the perfect attendance ones mean more than the ones for straight A's, because that's what was harder. My name on any letter-sized piece of paper (or I guess any size) could mean something if I wanted it to.

In the last couple days I was at my brother's graduation from the Illinois Math and Science Academy as well as the senior banquet the night before. They constantly referred to "the best students in the state," and I would get momentarily disgruntled each time because I felt like I was being written off just because I chose to go to my regular public high school, as if that meant I wasn't smart. But then I reminded myself I go to one of the top universities in the country; I accumulated 28 points of college credit by the time I graduated high school. I may not be able to do half the math my brother can at this point, but I can write circles around most people, and I have a love of history and sometimes even an interest in biology. Not going to IMSA allowed me to continue to work at the local equity theatre where I learned a ton of skills I could never have learned in school. I think I've turned out fine.

I'm extremely proud of my brother. He's done a lot in his years at IMSA, and he even got an A in his English class this semester - which happened to be "Modern Theatre" (and involved seeing As You Like It at Chicago Shakespeare, for some reason, so I'm not sure what we're calling "modern"). I can't wait to see what he ends up doing in life. He's going to love college. My little brother is going to college?! 21 shouldn't feel this old.