On Graduations
Musings on the cherished four-year college experience and… life
BY ANNINA BRADLEY
On my sister’s college campus’ they’ve erected a stage for her upcoming commencement ceremony. Soon, she’ll turn her tassel and squeeze her friends goodbye. It all has me feeling a little nostalgic for her sake, and reflecting on our younger selves—long before we ever set foot on our respective college campuses.
My sister’s campus has an undeniable mystique to it. Brick buildings with paned windows outline a central green quad, and in the library, brass bankers’ lamps illuminate oak desks. After rain, fog lifts from the nearby river, rowers cutting across the water in their shells.
For a long while, the idea of college was mystical to me. College seemed like a certain paradise. I remember hearing from college alums, a twinkle in their eyes, about the “best years” of their lives. I daydreamed of the future, university marketing brochures feeding my imagination. A picnic beside gothic architecture discussing important texts!? I couldn’t think of many things that sounded better.
I tease myself a little, not because studying in university isn’t an immense gift to be treasured, but because we all have those moments in life when our bewitchment is broken and the thing that we’ve fantasized suddenly appears so… normal. We realize that no earthly place (or person, or thing), is ever without its shortcomings: the college freshman comes to find that even on the mystical campus of his dreams, his morning alarm still rings too early. The laundry machine took all of his quarters.
At some point the fuzziness of our daydreams wears off, and life comes into view as… real life.
Still, as I reflect on the past three years of my own college experience, I can fortunately say they have been some of the “best years” of my life. And I can’t speak for my sister, but I think she might say the same, even if they were frequented by days that could be hard, or lonely, or stressful.
What have made these years so? For me, it hasn’t necessarily been about the place in of itself (although a slope sunset certainly can’t hurt), but rather the people with whom I’ve shared ordinary moments. What I love most about the college campus is stumbling into my friends at any time of the day and sharing the small things—a walk to class, a meal, a studying table.
Life is rich in these four short years, not so much because of my college’s mystical environment, but because of the people that fill it. That’s what I’ve learned since my once uncertain future came into focus.
I think maybe it’s tempting to look upon the “undergraduate experience” beforehand and afterhand with rose-colored glasses. It’s not a paradise. But the good news is, the best part I’ve found about it—joy in the relationships we forge—can carry on throughout the rest of our lives, so long as we cultivate them.
When my sister crosses the stage at her own graduation, I’ll be proud of her mostly because she knew a place, and its people, and loved it—loved it for its beauty, loved it despite its flaws, loved it to make it better.
College is what you make of it, they say. Four years in a blink. Nothing less, nothing more, than a great gift. Something like… life.
Life will be tinged with bittersweetness, gratitude, and grief—my sister knows of it now I’m sure. It will throw its punches; it will disappoint. It will continue to be filled with glories big and small that point to the goodness of a God who never does. Glory in a sunrise. Glory in a spoonful of honey. Glory in friendship. I’m convinced that He is the only one who will make all our years the “best ones.” He will provide for the years ahead in ways we could never anticipate.
We’ll have other graduations soon—many in a lifetime to mark the changes of seasons, and one to commemorate them all. At that point, all that was unimaginable and imperceptible will come into view, and it will be better than anything our imaginations could conceive.