cap and gown

At first, I couldn’t figure out why the coffee shop was so crowded. Most mornings, it’s empty except for the regulars, usually four or five of them, tipping back in their chairs, sleeping, bent over crossword puzzles or discussing, depending on the season, baseball or politics. The people this morning were different, talking quietly among themselves, the men in jackets and ties, the women in pale dresses and heels and, in one case, a straw hat tied with a black ribbon. Then I noticed a woman standing by the counter wearing something black and billowy and realized it was graduation day.

I skipped my own graduation, though it’s hard to remember exactly why. It had something to do with feeling that graduating wasn’t anything that particularly needed to be celebrated. It had something to do with not wanting to do what everyone else was doing . It probably had something to do with my parents who, even today, more thirty years after their divorce, can’t be in the same room – or even the same zip code – without something very, very bad happening . But mostly it was because I just didn’t want to think about it.

I don’t remember where I was on graduation day – in another city, buying new clothes for my summer job? driving cross-country with my boyfriend? – but I know where I wasn’t. I wasn’t listening to someone say “commencement is not only an end, but also a beginning.” I wasn’t standing in line. I wasn’t waiting for my name to be called. I wasn’t walking across the stage, shaking the dean’s hand and taking a rolled up piece of paper that was supposed to be my diploma, but really wasn’t, since the real diploma would arrive several weeks later in the mail.

On my way to work, I drove by the line of people waiting to get into campus. They stood clumped in small groups, each with one member in a gown, either black or black with striped sleeves or black with a brightly-colored hood. Were they happy? Proud? Scared? Packing books into boxes, I had looked around my almost-empty dorm room and wondered if I had ever really lived there. The room looked exactly the way it had when I arrived in September. Next September, someone else would live there. I knew that despite all the promises to keep in touch I would never see most of my friends again. That things would never be the same. That I would never be the same. I hated the thought of graduation for the same reason I hate birthdays and break ups and farewell dinners. I’m just not that good at goodbyes.