Here's my Thoughts on Graduation...

I graduated from college. But if you didn't ask me about it, you would have never known. It took me a minute to realize why I didn't announce it to the world or send out announcements. I'm pretty sure I didn't even tell my grandma. Yikes...

Why? It has nothing to do with graduation. Not even graduating in a pandemic. It has everything to do with my eagerness to move on to the next thing in life and everything to do with my own imposter syndrome. You see, I never give myself a moment to celebrate. Celebration? Don't know her. Wish I did, but I am afraid we have never truly made acquaintances.

As I reflected on this, I started to realize the oodles of narratives I have carved for myself. First, we have the one titled "I'm not good enough or haven't worked hard enough, so I don't deserve to celebrate." Next up on the bestseller list is "Taking time to celebrate is taking time away from working towards my next goal" and my personal favorite, which could probably earn one of those fancy awards "I don't need time to rest, I constantly need to be moving forward."

Yep, I wrote all of those narratives. And now I'm trying to go back through with white-out and rewrite better ones.

Here's the thing about graduation: it deserves a celebration. You deserve a celebration. Not because you graduated but because you are human. Celebrate because you graduated. Celebrate because it's the weekend. Celebrate because you folded your laundry (which I will definitely be doing right after writing up this post). Just celebrate!

I don't give myself enough acknowledgment or credit. Maybe you're with me on that one. I think we live in a culture that feeds the message that it's bad to brag. We learn it's bad to take a moment to acknowledge we are awesome... because that would imply that we are good enough, and heaven forbid that is true.

So here's what graduation taught me: take a moment. Take a break. Look at how far you've come, it doesn't matter how far you have to go. Tomorrow will be there when you're ready for it, but today, just celebrate. It doesn't have to be complex. It can be simple. It can be a look in the mirror, simply saying "I did that."

Simply, sincerely,

Maddie