The Perfectly Bookended Cry of the College Graduates of 2024
My oldest graduated from college in May.
When I wrote her a card, I dated it and wrote underneath the date: I guess this day ended up coming.
I’m not sure why I still allow Time to shock me. After all my lived experience of years kaleidoscoping and collapsing, I don’t know why I remain surprised by all that fleets away.
I only know that at every milestone, time and distances conjunct. Inchstones. Milepebbles. I only know that I dropped my daughter off at college a few minutes ago, with a college graduation an impossible amount of time away, locked in the future, not meant for the present or past.
When she graduated from high school, I also couldn’t believe it. And I, to my great detriment, montaged all the years that had come before: a bohemian-dressing preschooler who wore tights on her head like a hat; a kilted elementary nymph who’d walk away from my car at drop-off with pony tail swinging, steady and sure, as if she were horse and rider both; a middle schooler just trying to get through middle school because as a girl, getting through is the only path available in middle school; a high schooler who year over year refined what her future self might do and be like.
