The Perfectly Bookended Cry of the College Graduates of 2024

jen murphy parker
10 min readJun 6, 2024
They didn’t get an opening ceremony, but they got a closing.

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.

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jen murphy parker
jen murphy parker

Written by jen murphy parker

Jen Murphy Parker is a San Francisco-based writer exploring what exists in the middle - of parenting, of health, of life.