I’ve put off writing about graduation. I’ve been thinking about it for a while—ever since it was on my radar that I would be able to complete graduation and complete it well.
My history with graduations is fraught, to say the least. In my senior year of high school everything came to a screeching halt one day, out of the blue. Though, now, looking back, I see the pile up that truly caused it. I’ve spent my entire education not just learning and trying to be a good girl in class, but also battling my sensory overload. I didn’t realize just how much a part of that history my sensory disfunction was until my therapist asked me a simple question one day along the lines of, “did the sights or sounds or smells at school bother you?” And I suddenly realized that I could still be hit with the memory of the smell of every school I’d ever walked into—particularly the cafeteria, which, of course, was the entrance to several of my schools. In that moment, I looked back and saw little me fighting for her life with no words to explain that overwhelm—just tears and screams.
I think I made it one month into my senior year of high school before I more or less dropped out. Perhaps fortunately—perhaps not, because of my sensory disfunction—I had learned to overachieve in most areas and I was plenty of credits ahead by that year to the point where I was simply missing one class to graduate. Though I could barely get out of bed most days and my anxiety was the highest I’ve ever experienced in my life, I made it through that last class. I had to do it in summer school, but I made it.
I walked with my classmates feeling like a complete failure and a fraud. It took me about fifteen years to even use the word “drop-out” or talk about my senior year without overwhelming grief hitting me. That graduation was nothing but a show. Little me in her good-girl façade, walking with the group so that she wouldn’t be picked out.
My undergrad graduation was different. This time instead of anxiety, chronic and acute illness took the stage. I walked 18 months or so after getting hit by a car as a pedestrian. I had a whole life planned out. I was so near graduation that summer and I knew exactly what I would do. I would have to push myself a little, yes, but if there was one thing I was able to do, it was push myself. I had just barely squeaked through high school with endometriosis and daily headaches keeping me in bed more often than school absences allowed for. I could work through anything.
But that accident took my short term memory. I would close a book and barely remember what page numbers I had read, much less the content. I was so dizzy at random intervals I was afraid I might not be able to make the short walk back to my home every day after class for 9 months. My daily headaches had become daily migraines and suddenly there were days when taking even a gentle step felt like my brain may explode. Yet again, I was trapped in a body I didn’t understand.
Recently, my massage therapist turned my world upside down when after speaking about my accident she asked, “did you emotionally process that trauma?” The answer, I thought was yes. Very quickly, however, I realized, of course I haven’t…
I lost the little stability I had in my traitorous-feeling body. And with that, surety in my graduation and future.
That summer I, also, connected with and starting dating my husband. In uncertainty, I found a home like I had never dared to hope I would find. But my graduation this time was merely a hurdle. Although I struggled to make it over, I was fortunate to have the support I did from family, friends, and professors and the ability to stretch out my time in order to finish. But the damage done to my body made it impossible to finish well. And just on the other side was another large event that took more of my time and was more celebrated than my graduation—my wedding. (I could write an entire page just on that, but I’ll digress.)
Ten years have passed, now. My body has been worked on and healed and had more damage through those years. I came to a place where I didn’t know if my body would even be able to walk across a stage. I cried myself to sleep countless nights in grief. Grief over what my body is now. Grief over what my body used to be able to do. Grief over loved ones lost. Grief over the major events that shifted the entire world while I tried to hold on long enough to finish this new degree. This new chance to finish well. And I did.
But I didn’t finish well because I let my good-little-girl façade hold or because I white-knuckled through pain and just got the grades. I finished well because for the first time in my life, I was kind to myself. Not always, because I’m still learning what a gentle inner-voice feels like, but more often than I’ve ever experienced.
When I was ten years old, I watched my dad walk and receive his master’s degree. I knew then and there, that there was nothing I wanted more—expect maybe a Ph.D. But part of my desire was so others would see me as something of value. So, after my undergrad, I waited. Until six years later, I felt like the Holy Spirit had done enough work in my soul for me to go to school for no one else but Him and me. I applied, to the one kind of school I had sworn in my undergrad I would never attend—seminary. And I was ecstatic.
Again, I had a path. But instead of undergrad-me, planning out every step, this path is illuminated one section at a time. I had learned how to walk with God in faith in little patches. Stepping to the edge of the first light and waiting with patience for the next to be lit up. The first step was this degree. Learning well, not just academically, but spiritually as well. Feeding my soul and learning to sit in the murk with God while sorting through our history as Christians and where our future may be.
And God was faithful to my faithfulness. The second semester of my degree, COVID hit. Everything shut down, except my class choices. The full world of seminary, originally hidden, opened up to me and I was able to change my degree to something I so desired—a master of arts in theology. Each new class felt like home. My mind and soul were at peace and overjoyed.
As I reflect back, there was a little gift hidden in this form of school for me—safety. My home has the sensory inputs I know and have curated. There was never a moment of class where my body was taut and overwhelmed because my senses were bombarded. I have never enjoyed school as much I did in this season—and I have always loved to learn.
This degree wasn’t any easier in may ways. Like each time before, something else took center stage—this time, it was grief. My second set of finals came at the same time that I was waiting frantically on texts to know whether or not family members would live or die. I nearly cried for two years after every time I felt a text notification. I still tense at them. I don’t think a phone’s vibration notification will ever feel the same. My third semester finished with residual trauma, but nothing new. Until the day after the New Year, when I got the most jarring phone call from my mother about yet another family member suffering.
Between my husband and myself, we’ve lost more people over the course of the last three years than I had in my life up until that point. At first, I felt the water close over my head in an all too familiar feeling. Depression pulled me down in the mire again and I struggled to pull free. The kindness of my professors and my husband’s unwavering care helped me through that second semester. The people in my life who have offered kind words and comfort kept me on the surface of my depression long enough to make it through.
The summer after my first year, I decided I needed some extra help. I started seeing an amazing therapist who helped me learn how to be gentle with myself. I learned to cradle the fragile parts of me and very carefully challenge the sharp parts. Slowly, I was able to hold myself well.
I began to notice my sensory triggers. And I cared for them. I noticed my body’s needs and rhythms. And I cared for them. I noticed the way it felt when I spoke harshly to myself, cruelly, even. And I cared for me. I tended to the little girl inside me who pushed herself down so that she wouldn’t be a burden. I propped her up and told her it was okay to lash out, but she didn’t have to anymore. The words were there and, when she was ready, I would hear her.
I spent four years, letting God and myself tend to my soul in a degree that can easily become all cerebral. In those four years, I was fortunate enough to turn outward and ask for the help I knew I needed. In those years my body lost and regained abilities and lost them again. As I walked on May 6th, in a city I had not been to before then, I purposely surrounded myself with the people who had cared for little me long before I did. I loved her well, even though she wasn’t ready to speak yet. I celebrated joyfully, even though the words weren’t formed yet. Despite what it may look like in this large grouping of letters, the words still aren’t formed, yet.
I am proud of my accomplishment and I am so very grateful for everything I learned in seminary over the past four years. I am grateful that I have been able to use it from day one doing what I truly believe God lead me to it for—leading and walking alongside others, especially in doubt and grief and heartache. I will continue to use it as God leads me, step by step and moment by moment, even if it takes years before I feel like I’ve produced something.
And, yet. And, yet, I’m not ready to shout from the rooftops that I’ve graduated. And, yet, I’m struggling to feel much of anything when I think about it exclusively. And, yet, the numbness may take a while to go away and it may or may not leave something in its place. Because the truth is, so much has happened in these four years, and I’ve decided that I’m walking with little me while she explores. And I won’t rush her. I’d much rather use that energy to explore with her and see where it leads.