I’ve always been good at pushing forward when life throws me for a loop—through my parents’ divorce, break-ups, or moving. So, when the reality of COVID-19 sank in and life came to a screeching halt, I thought, it’s okay, why dwell on what could’ve been? I moved home, picked up new hobbies… no muss, no fuss. When my classmates mourned Spring Fling or Myrtle Week, I let their talk float in one ear and out the other, feeling that it was unproductive to let these “what ifs” get to me. I tried to practice gratitude; what was the point of being sad if we have so much to be grateful for?
The shell that I had constructed to protect myself from feeling the loss of senior year cracked slowly. It cracked a little on the day that would’ve been my last Pitches & Tones concert. A little more when the soundtrack for Legally Blonde the Musical, which I would’ve been a part of during Commencement, came on Spotify. A little more when I typed in my NetID for Senior Destination Night, maybe for the last time (although this was really more funny than sad). And more yesterday, when my mom asked me why I sleep so late and then asked “when you’re at Yale, the streets are probably packed when it’s midnight right? 9 P.M. is when life is just getting started.”
I graduate from Yale in two days and I can no longer ignore how disappointing it is that we were robbed of our final weeks, turning my Yale experience into something like a great television show with a lousy finale. I am finally forced to confront what Yale has meant to me over the last four years. I ate Yale, breathed Yale, lived Yale, and learned Yale with every moment. And now, I miss Yale. I wish more than anything that I could be prancing around Cross Campus popping bottles of champagne with my friends under the long-awaited New Haven sun, or singing on the Yale Drama School stage, my friends cheering me on as I sing my singular solo line, or dancing and drinking the night away at BAR pizza with my roommates. But, even though that’s not possible right now and that fact is extremely disheartening, we shouldn’t just move on.
Not so fast, at least. College graduation is an extraordinary achievement, something I feel is often forgotten in my sphere of the world. Of the milestones in life that call for over-the-top, rambunctious celebration, college graduation is surely in the top three.
Our four years at Yale (yes, 4, not 3.75) deserve recognition. They deserve to be celebrated for what they were and even the 0.25 that they were not. Because if we don’t acknowledge the feat now, if we just keep pushing forward with life without a moment to reflect, then we are at risk of taking it all for granted. We risk forgetting the passing nods to the classmates you haven’t spoken to since your English class freshman year but have always admired or the three random seniors you met at the first Feb Club party who share your star sign, moments of such sentimentality and unity that may only arise at a graduation ceremony. If we don’t include these brief moments of joy in our conception of Yale now, then they will fade.
So, although we may be tempted to spurn watching pre-recorded speeches in the company of a few loved ones in our living room or sitting alone on our bed because it may not feel like enough, we owe it to ourselves to observe the occasion. Graduation is not only a time for loud celebration, but for silent reflection during which we honor the four years of our lives we spent at Yale. Just because the last few months were a bit sour doesn’t mean the rest of the memories were any less sweet.