Well, it's finally happened. If you've been here before, you know that graduation day has been a date in my diary that I've been dreading for some time. I always looked forward to the ceremony itself, but the thought that it is the last en-masse gathering of my favourite people on the planet never failed to make me more than a little maudlin.
In the end, it was actually a much happier occasion than I thought. For all that that I like to see modernisation everywhere, the ancient-feeling pomp and ceremony of the, er ... ceremony, really spoke to me. From my second-row-from-the-back vantage point I had an excellent view of what was merely 100 pointy hats away from being a scene from Harry Potter. If you are familiar with my, let's call it love (obsession sounds so seedy), for Harry Potter, you will understand how happy this made me.
Anyway, with lectures finishing so long ago it already felt like uni was over, so instead of the final chapter, today was the perfect addendum to the story of the last few years. I'd like to think that I had some part in my not being depressed. Having billed everything I could over the last few months as "THE END", I'd somehow nullified the finality of the day and turned it into just a great chance to see friends (in some cases perhaps a last chance).
I guess that's what it's supposed to be. It's a funeral for your student days but as always it's a celebration of life rather than a sad occasion. The idea is to look to the future and how this great experience will now help you going forward but I went to uni for uni's sake, not for my future career. I'm sure I wasn't the only one who felt the pangs of finality but then I also know we were all so happy to be there in our gowns, having our hard work recognised.
I can't help looking to the past, I should list it as my place of residence on official documents, but even as the ceremony concluded, consigning my favourite time and place to the past and tethering me yet stronger to my tendency for reminiscence rather than new experiences my happiness could not be dented. In fact it lasted all evening. Never in the history of human endeavour has something been dreaded so terribly by so few for so long, and then so heartily enjoyed.
After the main event was concluded came the part I'd really been dreading. Since the first time I realised exactly how much I loved my life (a feeling I was having for possibly the first time), this moment had been part of my nightmares. It is the moment of goodbye.
Now, I've said before how shit I am at maintaining a friendship. But then again there have never been friendships I've so wanted to maintain. I still have little faith in my ability to do so, but my motivation for the task gives me some small modicum of confidence that I might do it this time. And my favourite moment of the day was contained in this dread hour, at the time of my final departure came, not the words I'd been longing to hear - they shall remain forever unspoken - but I did hear the six words that would have come somewhere around fifth or sixth on the list of phrases I'd most have liked a certain someone to say. Not for the first time, I felt like I was standing there with my soul bared and that my every desire was visible when she said "We will see each other again." Looking in those eyes it was almost possible to believe those words to be true despite my own doubts on the matter and the memory of that moment, easily the most heavily replayed one of the whole day, still draws a smile to my lips.
Au revoir, my friends. Adieu Leeds. Auf wiedersehen shining glow of an otherwise unattainable happiness. We will see each other again
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