no snazzy title--it took too long to get here. i thought about making my usual snarky comments and blowing this off as if it weren't important. i know that undergrad graduation is merely a blip on the screen. i know that the hard (and more rewarding) work is yet to come and i am anxiously anticipating grad school. but...

i graduated HS in 1986. yes, that was a good long while ago. i am reminded of that every time i sit in a class with people who were born while i was still in HS. i only applied to one college back then--a school with a strong music program. see, at age 17 i knew exactly how the rest of my life was going to work out. i would be as successful in college as i was in HS. i would graduate and spend some time as a professional musician (in high demand) and then settle in to teach HS so i could raise my perfectly behaved, exceptionally talented children--one boy and one girl. my husband would dote on me and we would travel and live in luxury.

so that was the plan. not a bad plan, but you can imagine that it was more theoretical than practical. i am, alas, not a famous musician. in fact, i went from being a big fish in a little pond to being chum for the snobby, pretentious music department. i started to hate playing. i dreaded lessons. i hated recitals. i wanted to be with open-minded people who enjoyed varieties of music and found myself in classical hell. i love classical music. in fact, it is what i am best at playing, however, i wanted options.

i was away for the first time and you know what that meant? no parents. that's right. freedom. (and to those parents that might be reading this...pretend i made this up to better the story, ok?) i discovered a social life. one that included drinking and friends and parties and guys and probably a little more drinking. when i mixed that newfound social excitement with my utter disappointment in what i had always loved it wasn't a recipe for success.

i stopped going to classes. i started to feel like a poor student, a poor musician--i was miserable. my grades showed it. so i just stopped going. i didn't withdraw. it wasn't even really a conscious decision. one day i just stopped going and didn't go back.

and then...real life. i met jim. and we dated. and dated. and lived together...for a really. long. time. we deftly deflected the "are you guys ever going to get married" question for almost 8 years. then kids. yup, kids, two of 'em. and marriage (to the shock of those who had given up). and you know what? it was real life. not my imagined life.

so, i was not a professional musician. in fact, i rarely even played. i was not a teacher. i worked a variety of jobs--banker, painter, day care worker. and my kids? nope, not perfect. but much more fun. they are creative and challenging and funny and so much better than the cookie cutter family i had planned out.

but i realized something. i still didn't fit in. i wasn't going to be driving a minivan and making cupcakes for the pta. i was never going to fit in with the soccer mom crowd. i wasn't exactly martha stewart around the house either. i tried for a while. but i failed. and i was miserable.

so for two years i would go through the motions of returning to school in the fall. i would get the paperwork, maybe even fill it out, and then just not go through with it. after all, i was a terrible student. i left my first college on academic probation. i hadn't played in years and now i didn't know what i wanted to be when i grew up.

i finally got brave enough to go through with it. my first class? i chose expository writing. i had dropped this course three times during my first attempt at college. i knew i wasn't a good writer but i thought if i could get through this course, the one i dreaded the most, i could do this. i would just get a liberal arts degree, at least it was something.

but then a surprise. i wasn't a bad student. the first school had been a bad school, or at least for me. and i got lucky this time. the professor took me aside and recommended that i consider staying in the english department. she recommended that i take a course in medieval lit with a professor that she thought i would work well with.

no surprises here, i guess. that professor is my advisor/mentor/friend and i am headed off to fordham for graduate studies in medieval lit. i have had nothing but success at this school. i finally figured out what i want to be when i grow up and that maybe i don't feel like growing up just yet either. because of my advisor, i realized that my options weren't limited to teaching elementary school with an alternate route degree or selling socks at the gap. he opened up doors, encouraged me, pushed me, and at times exasperated me. and now i am saying goodbye and it is a little more emotional than i had anticipated.

i met friends that love what i love and think like i think and stay up late with me debating over drinks and movies.

and now i am moving on. i am finished here. i have outgrown it. but i am still a little sentimental about this school that allowed me to find my way. and i am a little proud of what i have accomplished. nineteen years after my last graduation, i am finally going to graduate and i am doing it summa cum laude. i have been awarded honors in both the english department and the music department. i never would have imagined that this is where i would be back when i was 17 and had it all planned out--who knows where i will be in five or six more years. i'd say i had that all planned out as well, but we know how that would go.

hey, it took me a while. but i finally figured it out. i am lucky. i got a second chance. i got to grow up a bit before deciding what i wanted to be when i grew up. so today is a day to celebrate a little--and tomorrow as well. hey, it took a while to get here, two days of celebrating seems perfectly reasonable. and there are a lot of people--family and friends, who have been supportive through all my tantrums and triumphs who deserve to celebrate as well.

cheers everyone!