The Chapter Begins to End

I have just come home from the final meeting of my last class for my masters degree.

I don't remember either my last class for undergrad or high school, but I do remember when both of those chapters of my life felt like they were over.

High school was a torture for me. I haven't written much about it for two reasons: 1) it was so long ago it's virtually irrelevant, and 2) a miserable high-school experience is almost the Common American Experience.

I graduated from high school in a small, affluent town in northwest Iowa. My family was not affluent, and for the most part neither were the families of the kids I hung out with. Linda's father seemed to be eternally unemployed; Carol's parents were retired; Mark and Mary's mother was supporting nine kids on a nurse's salary; I think Dennis's mother tended bar; and Beth's parents were struggling through the Great Demise of the Family Farm. My father was a sign painter who at his death made a little over $8 an hour and my mother...was my mother. I spent most of my teen-age years trying to be as inconspicuous as possible, waiting for the moment when I would go to college and could be myself.

I took a bus from Le Mars to Des Moines, which is basically an all-day affair. The bus left early on a Friday morning and I had everything I owned, including a pillow and a copy of the complete works of Shakespeare, packed into two suitcases. My mother and sister said good-bye to me at the house and my father drove me to the laundromat where the bus stopped. When I got there Mark, Mary, and Carol were waiting to see me off. I don't really remember too much except that as the bus pulled away my father was standing next to his ancient white station wagon, waving his frayed fishing hat while my friends ran after the bus, waving and screaming. That is the moment when my childhood officially ended.

The day I graduated from Drake was a hot, mid-May Sunday. My family came to see me receive my diploma, Mom driving in from Seattle and my father and sister driving down from Le Mars. I was surprised that my father made it, not because he didn't care. He just didn't usually attend these types of things and I honestly didn't expect him. I don't remember where the ceremony was held -- some large sports arena -- and I don't remember too much about the ceremony except that my friend Jill's family made the most noise when she walked across the stage, and she walked across right before I did. I remember the instant I received that little black book -- I mean that fraction of a second -- I wanted to hand it back and say, "OOO! I know what this was supposed to have been. Do overs!"

In part, I went into grad school as an undergrad do over. Of course, very quickly I realized that this experience wasn't going to be anything like the womb of four years of undergraduate work. As an undergrad, it was the people who had the most impact on my life. In graduate school, it's been the actual study.

I write this, and I wonder what did I learn? In class tonight the professor gushed about the quality of writing in the class and how some of us were destined for great careers. He wasn't talking about me; he told me as much in my individual evaluation with him. But tonight wasn't about seeking validation from a professor. I find myself asking bigger questions. How am I a different person from the one who started this degree? Did I learn anything? Is my professor right and the best I can ever aspire to is ephemeral mediocrity? Those are probably unfair questions to ask at this point. I still have projects to turn in, a diploma to accept school loans to repay, a Pulitzer to win...

Whether I'm a new and improved version of myself; whether I'm wiser; or whether I can ever rise above the pedestrian, I can't help feeling like a new chapter is beginning, and that the possibilities for me are only limited by myself. As a writer, I should sum this up with a pithy, yet profound insight, but unfortunately I have to close with the observation that maybe the cliche is true for me. Only time will tell...