Just got a call from my mother, she was asking when my graduation ceremony was and how she could get tickets. I had to tell her that it was last friday and that I had skipped it. She was mortified, for some reason. I said that she and my father had never asked me about the graduation. She said that she had been afraid to, thinking that I would object and not let them go (not really that far from the truth), and that they had been waiting for me to mention it. I said that it really wasn’t a big deal, and that I didn’t see what was worth celebrating. She said that she went to my sister’s graduation and they were proud of her. Well, my my sister went to an Ivy League school and graduated with honors, and went on to go to grad school at one of most prestigious schools on the planet: Oxford. I just went to the school down the street and took almost 10 years to get an associate’s degree and another 4 to get a bachelors in a rather useless field: Literature.
I don’t really feel like college is some great accomplishment. It’s just something I got through. I do feel bad about hurting my mother’s feelings like that. But it’s her fault for not asking about it. True, I would have resisted going. But I probably would have relented eventually.
