Graduation is inching ever closer. As in two days from now. I haven’t even tried on my robes yet. Yes, I called them robes. I’m trying to think of what this means to me. Only a few weeks ago, I was depressed after my MFA rejection. Now that I’m over it, I’m really happy about this break from school. Maybe temporary, maybe permanent. Whatever it is, though, I want it to be adventurous.
I’m tired of being uptight, scared, and worried all the time. I’ve thought about moving just to take myself out of my element and force myself to adapt, make new friends, and unwind. I could use all this energy from worrying, and focus it on something worthwhile, something that will actually get me places, whether that’s geographically or spiritually or mentally.
Looking back on the last four years of my life I realize just how much I closed myself off from people. I left with no lasting friendships. In four years. None. If I could go back, of course I would do things differently. If I knew this was how it would turn out. But it’s so easy to say that after it’s already done. Now is the time to take my regrets and apply my longings to the future. I can’t change the fact that I didn’t take full advantage of my time in college, but I can take what I learned from my own unique experience to help me in the future, and especially the present.
The present has always been the most challenging tense for me. Even in writing, I always find myself reverting to past tense. The past is easy to focus on. It’s a seductive deterrent. And while some critics chastise writers for using the present as a main tense, I find it grounding. It forces us to think in the here and now, and hints with each word what we hope for the future. We don’t know what it brings. But the present is how we get there, not the past.
