The Graduate

I could apologize for my long hiatus from blogging, but we all know it wouldn't matter. Most people can't be minding too terribly that I've been two months absent.

This coming Tuesday, a mere 48 hours from now, I will be sitting through my last class of graduate school. I don't know what to think about this, I really don't. On the one hand, I'm terrified. That, I'm sure of. I have no real job and no reply from the seventy jobs I've applied for this spring. When school is over, I will have four days a week of temp work and only my social life to look forward to. My social life, and pending loan bills. But on the other hand, I'm elated. No more guilt for every minute I spend watching videos on the Internet instead of reading stylistics or composition theory. No more professors who love nothing more than the sound of their own voices. No more days that begin at 8am and end at 9:30pm. And, for chrissakes, I'll have a Master's degree. When you look at it like that, it seems pretty awesome.

When I moved to Chicago, when I signed on for those student loans and long, school-driven days, I didn't picture it all ending like this. I pictured internships, intimidating offices, page upon page of portfolio wonder. From the comfort of 2007, I saw jobs lined up and salaries that made me realize just how little I had made at the nonprofit in KC. Not data entry, not advertising copy-bitch, not recession or its impending doom. But here we are.

The thing is, I think I'm having the best spring of my life. It must be, because the days have fled so quickly that tomorrow it will be June. Two weeks from today, I will be in a rented gown, sitting through a hideously long graduation ceremony for a school I feel very little attachment to. I can't really say how I got here, and I know I can't tell you how I got here this quickly, but here I am. Here I am, and I know things are OK because I'm counting my graces: four days of weekly temping are better than eating lots of peanut butter and begging my parents for money. The sun is out longer each day, and the windows stay open in my bedroom. I have three amazing months to enjoy living with my dear roommate in this house with the backyard and the open kitchen which are perfect for parties. When my family arrives for graduation, I have a host of wonderful new characters to introduce them to. The whole family is coming, every last one of them, and that includes Emmy!

So even on this sleepy Sunday night, I'm keeping the panic at bay. It's ok that I can't picture what the next year will look like. I was wrong about the last two, and they've successively been the best yet.