A Letter to the Graduates and New Grownups

This May marks three years since I graduated college, but boy does it feel like a lifetime.  In some ways, these three years have been a blur of wedding planning, learning to work full-time, and doing all those “grownup” things nobody warns you about.  I’ve gotten married, traveled to Europe, taught in several different schools, and done a whirlwind of things since I graduated three years ago.

But in other ways, these last few years have been incredibly slow.  I’ve wrestled with deep questions of who I am, where my value and identity come from, and what it looks like to find fullness and joy in a grownup world that often just feels routine.  That struggle led me to counseling last year, and every day is another battle to choose joy in a world that invites me to choose sadness, cynicism, and hopelessness.

As I see all of your cap and gown pictures in my newsfeed, I remember how surreal that day was for me.  I think I expected to feel different, to feel like I was somehow the more grownup, “educated” version of myself, but I still just felt like me.  More than the hours of sitting on a sweaty lawn chair listening to way too many names, the moments that stand out to me from that season the most are the slow goodbyes over those few weeks in May.

Photo by Kenzie Kate Photography

I remember hearing my Young Life girls share stories about how our relationship had impacted them, or sitting on the couch with my roommates for the last time.  I remember walking to my last class and eating my last dinner in the school cafeteria, surrounded by friends and memories and the smell of delicious chicken parmesan.  And maybe the saddest memory of them all, I remember hugging my friends goodbye, climbing into my packed Toyota Highlander with my boyfriend, and crying uncontrollably for the first few miles down I-77 as I realized that this challenging and oh so sweet season of my life was officially over.

If I could talk to myself and all the other graduates that May, full of a million questions, doubts, hopes, and fears, here is what I’d say:

My dear friends,

First off, congratulations! I know that lots of hours of work (and play) went into your reaching this day, and I’m proud of you.  No matter your G.P.A., no matter what you got on that last final, no matter where you’re headed next year, you have accomplished something brilliant today, and I hope that you allow yourself to feel proud of that accomplishment.

I know you are so full of hopes and excitement and fear about what lies beyond this summer.  You’re looking ahead, whether you have it all lined up or have no idea what will happen in the weeks and years to come.  But for now, I’m going to tell you to look back.

The friends around you, the beautiful campus that’s been your home, the coffee shops and cafeterias and dorm porches that hold hours of laughter and silliness and life, those places will never be your home again.  There’s a very good chance you will never be as surrounded by friends and people your own age as you have been these last few years, and I can almost guarantee you that you’ll never eat as many late night pizzas or drink as many late night coffees.

This season of your life is ending, my sweet friends.  And before you can fully move on into adulthood, you have to be willing to admit that.  Your years in college, whether you loved or hated them, are over.  Give yourself the time and space to grieve that.  Laugh with friends whose compassion and listening taught you how to be loved.  Cry as you walk by the spot where you first realized you wanted to be a teacher, a lawyer, a photographer – or the spot where you realized you have no freaking idea what you want to do and for now, that’s okay.  Grieve the loss of the last season in your life where your days are your own, where your schedule is defined by the activities, study times, and hours with friends that you choose.

I’m not saying that you won’t keep in touch or share life with all these people, go to school sporting events, or remember fondly your four years at school.  I’m not saying you won’t rock the t-shirt of your alma mater and take every opportunity to tell people you meet that Stephen Curry went there (GO CATS!).  I’m simply warning you that if you don’t let yourself grieve the loss of your college years, you will spend the next season of your life trying to recreate them.  

Going through counseling this last year has helped me to understand that my three years SINCE college have been a constant battle to recreate my four years IN college.  I missed my college friendships, so I weighed down any new friends with the expectation that they would love, transform, and know me like my friends in college did.  I longed for the closeness I felt with God in college, and I let bitterness and sadness grow when my days were monotonous and God seemed distant.   I disliked the routine of waking up at 5:30 AM and doing the same thing every day, and stopped even attempting to have quiet times or really pursue people as a result.

I was so frustrated that my new grownup life looked different than my college life that I let the joys of my fledgling adulthood pass me by.   In my disappointment that new friends didn’t measure up to my college friends, I missed the chance to share the stories and hurts and joys of the women in my new grownup season (women who might have been able to offer some insight into my struggles).  In my determination that faith should look exactly like it did in college, I missed the chance to learn how to pray and spend time with Jesus throughout the day rather than just in the mornings.  In my sadness that I was no longer making an impact like I did with Young Life, I missed many opportunities to pour into the students and people that I did see every day.

My “grownup” life here in Kansas City will never look exactly like my life in college — but maybe that’s okay.  I’m learning that life comes in seasons, and if I cling tightly to the lazy days and long nights of summer, I’ll miss the crisp evenings and changing leaves of fall.  If I don’t allow myself to enter into a dark and cold winter, the seeds of joy and fullness planted in the hard season will never be able to grow and flourish in my heart when the spring finally arrives.

Life after graduation is a new season, full of exploring and adventures and all sorts of challenges.  It will break you, transform you, and force you to wrestle with bigger questions of where your identity comes from, what your purpose is, and what people, places, and values will define you in your next stage of life.  You will learn the joy of independence, of making your own way and decisions.  You will meet new people whose perspectives and stories will shift the way you view life and faith and the world around us.  You will become a braver, more joyful, more confident, and deeper person than you ever could have dreamed as you walked across the stage that day.

So as you throw on that cap and gown, as you pack your bags and say goodbye to the people and places that have defined you these last four years, give yourself the space to grieve.  Your years in college have made you who you are, and you will never forget them.  But friends, they are coming to an end.  If we call it what it is, if we let ourselves walk away from one season and into the next, if we lay down the expectations that the next season be just like the previous one, we give ourselves the space to accept and hold whatever God places into our open, waiting hands.  When we release our expectations about what life should  look like after graduation or getting married or having kids, we give our new friends, spouses, jobs, communities, and days the space to delight and challenge and transform us once again.

I can’t promise you that the years after college will be easy.  In fact, I can almost guarantee you that they won’t be.  But they will be good, and they will change you in ways you could never imagine.  And that, my friends, that hope of growth and transformation and new joys, THAT is worth celebrating.

Sending all my love and a glass of celebratory champagne because YOU DID IT!

Lauren

Looking back at your graduation and first years of adulthood,  what pieces of advice would you give to recent graduates? If you are a recent graduate, what are you most nervous or excited for about leaving school and entering the “real world?”