that empty feeling after graduating college
I'm not alone in sharing the general sentiment that college just... ends. It's jarring, abrupt, and without much fanfare (excluding commencement.) I felt it in three parts: the last day of classes, finishing my last final exam and submitting my thesis, and two separate commencement ceremonies.
The last day of classes was surreal. I showed up to lecture, got lunch with my mass spectrometry class, went to a friend's thesis defense (all while drinking a heinous concoction of celsius, grain alcohol, and diet mountain dew out of a 1 liter chemical bottle labled "Food Use Only" and "Ethanol".) I got to ring the bell in the Wren building, and that was fun. But besides that, it just felt off. Like there should've been more, but that was it. Of course, we still had finals afterwards.
My last final was a take-home exam that i took in the chem building. And just like that, I was done with all my assignments. I smoked my last cigarette in the sunny day outside, and that was it. No more exams for my undergrad experience. The fact that it was a take-home made it even more underwhelming, since I took the in-person exam early. After all that effort, it just... ended. That was it. All my studying and my 4 years of academics just ends with an email to my professor, stopping by his office to confirm my submission.
Then came the lull, in-between the last final and graduation. A lot of crying, grad photos, and spending time with friends, waiting for the inevitable; graduation, and a completion of our college journey. My college splits graduation in two parts: commencement, and department graduations. I got a cheap outfit from goodwill (purely so my father did not crash out) and kinda dissociated the whole way though. I couldn't stop crying. I hated every moment of what should've been a celebration of my achievements.
For my own safety, I had the chem department deadname me intentionally. It hurt so bad to be the first to graduate on-stage, and i hated how i looked, and a name that was at best a legal abstraction of who I am be so viscerally tied to me. I couldn't stop weeping knowing that my journey was over, and moreso that i couldn't celebrate as who I was. I wanted to be up there, where they'd announce my name, and walk the stage wearing my white dress that I bought for graduation. I hugged both the department chair and my PI because if i went for a handshake i would've broke down crying.
And that was it. One random friday for commencement, and the day afterwards was graduation. I had honors that i could not celebrate, and then I had to drive partway home after my father was too tired to finish the drive. Then came the silence. It was just so quiet, and I could not stop crying. I missed my friends, I missed the College, and i just wished it didn't end so abruptly. The same overwelming grief that i last felt after leaving CTY came back knowing how much I deeply missed the community i had made there. But instead of 3 short weeks of the summer, it was 4 years of my life. I'm not sure if I can say they were the best four years of my life, but I made it. I survived and I thrived, and now I had to leave.
And in the stillness that followed, I really got to think more about it all. Ruminate on the feelings, the thoughts, and as i sit in my empty house, I realize that I still have unfinished business that I will need to spend the next month tidying up. I still have to publish my thesis as a technical note, I need to come in to clean up my desk, and I need to clean up and move out of my house. Plus writing and taking astrophotos, of course.