Once upon a time… I graduated college.
Once upon a time… I graduated college. This was back in 2023. Like many college grads, the months before graduation were disorienting, nostalgic, and swelled in me a certain type of dread. My experience is different than some since I went straight into graduate studies at my same university in the fall. So, much stayed the same even after I walked across the stage and grabbed my diploma. I wasn’t ripped from my undergraduate experience. Rather, it’s been a slow transition away from what’s been “normal” for the last four years of my life.
I wrote down some scribbles about the graduation experience almost two years ago (with the intention to use them as the voiceover for a YouTube video). But, in true Hannah fashion, I never shared them. I am deciding to share them now. I hope this makes up for it.
So, here are some vignettes of what was going on in my brain the months leading up to graduation and the summer after. If you are graduating soon or graduated recently— I hope it helps you reflect on the experience!
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On turning twenty-two:
“22 felt like I entered a new age bracket for the first time. Like for all the other past four birthdays, I was still in the same age-bracket: college aged, YOUNG young adult. But 22 was the first year I felt old. (Everyone older than me is probably laughing at me right now. MY OLDER SELF watching this is probably laughing at me right now) But that’s how it feels. Like I’m not just college-aged anymore, I’m GRADUATED college age. I’m get-on-with-your-life age. I’m it’s-time-to-get-a-big-girl-job age. I’m at the age where I’m supposed to answer the question:
What’s next?”
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(Yes, Hannah, 23-year-old-you is reading this and laughing at you right now. And 24-year-old-Hannah is probably laughing at the both of us, too.)
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On becoming a grown up:
“Becoming a grown up is like being a six year old who fits in her mom’s pajamas. It’s like losing your last baby tooth. It’s like walking in the shallow beginnings of the ocean when the sand suddenly sinks deeper under your feet. It’s the constant buzzing of that fly that won’t get out of your room. It’s like a scream. It’s the realization that you have to choose now. You have to go. You have to know, at least somewhat:
What’s next?”
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(Can you tell that question loomed over my head?)
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On the pain of leaving something good:
“I convince myself that if I do as much as I can— if I force feed myself hikes or days at the beach or 3 AMs in the middle of Metzger— I may scare away the pain of leaving, that each “memory” yells “boo!” at heartbreak, forcing it to scamper far, far away. But, I barely go to the Caf because I don’t have a weekly meal plan, I haven’t seen certain friends in weeks, and I didn’t go anywhere exciting over spring break. And the more you do, the more you lose. The less you do, the more you regret. It's pretty frustrating. There is always going to be a list of the 5,365 things I could’ve done but didn’t. I try to remember what I have done, but I don’t want to make a list named “Proving Myself.” That’s stupid. But I do it a lot. Goodness. I’m exhausted at my own circular thinking—”
—
(Same girl, same.)
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On thankfulness for the good:
“What an honor it is to love and be loved. Freshman year Hannah just wanted to be seen and known. I am overwhelmed by how known I feel. How integrated I have become. How many people I’ve been able to love and be loved by, to cherish their sweet existence.
I look back to even just the past two years of college, just junior and senior year, and I can’t believe what I was able to experience, who I was able to meet, who I was able to be blessed by. I have been so blessed up to this point, that I remember one person I had forgotten, and I am overwhelmed again with how influential they have been to my life. Who am I to be able to experience such beauty? To be gifted with such goodness seeping from all corners of my life? I am full, I am brimming, I am emptied, I am being filled.
The Lord has made my heart soft, malleable. At times I am cold and easily irritated, but still He has taken “this heart of stone and turned it to a heart of flesh” (Ez. 36:26).”
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Looking back on that time of my life, I am grateful for it all— the confusion and fear and worry. It all helped me hold tighter to His hand. I still don’t fully know the answer to that question haunting every twenty-something I know:
“What’s next?”
But, regardless, I’ll keep attempting to do the best I can with what I got. And, that’s all I can do. Thank God!
