On the edge of everything

Part 20

Do you ever hear a song and just start to cry? It's not necessarily that that song has some special meaning but it's just that dramatic power of music that hits the eardrum then penetrates your heart with its beauty. This happens the morning of graduation.

It's a song that I've never heard before. Rose sent it to me and the moment that the sound starts to reverberate through my room from the small speakers of my laptop, I have this intense urge just to lay down on my bed and close my eyes and let the noise pour over me. The guitar and the drums and that smooth voice that just rush with an intensity and beauty that make me emotional. I just want to know where it is going - what notes will come next, what words will follow, what rhythms will come to blow my mind. I lie in my bed and the song reaches its climax and I find my body shaking. I don't know if I'm bouncing my leg to the beat or what exactly is happening but once the music slows back to the refrain I know what that shaking is. I'm crying. My body is jostling back and forth to intense tears coming down my cheeks and I am just so overwhelmed and relieved.

This is it. This is finally it. I am going to graduate in only 3 hours. Usually when I have thought about the school and the proximity with which we are to the ending, I have been filled with a mixture of sadness and relief, but right now it's just plain bliss. I am done and the world seems endlessly filled with possibilities.

I continue to lie there as the song finishes, but I hit pause before another song can carry me to a different set of emotions and sensations. I want to remain in this place, letting the happy tears wash onto the quilt below me. I am so grateful for this moment and to finally feel ready and able to release these tears without pain or grief. It's just happiness right now and that is how I wish to remain for the whole day. This is my day, after all.

The weirdest part about graduation for me is the fact that I am the one participating. I have watched from the audience, I have been the celebrating sister and friend. Then, suddenly, I am wearing the blue robe and I am sitting in the middle of the basketball stadium and I am the one who is going to walk up onto that stage. It's all so surreal.

I arrive at the University of Portland at 11 in the morning, and I go towards the balloon-decorated signs for the graduates that guide me to a special entrance. I pass through the metal detector I am sure wasn't there a couple of years ago and I am greeted by the beautiful roar of a sea of graduates, crashing down on the shore after senior year has carried us on a wave.

Everyone has a glow about them, a lightness that I haven't seen since those fields at Finale. We all know what we are doing next year, where we are headed on our next great adventure and for today we get to experience a graduation that is to celebrate us, all of us, together for the very last time.

I try not to think about who in this large hall is never going to enter my life again before the fifth year reunion or a facebook update; I don't want to consider the graduation so much as the commencement. We are here to commence the next chapter of our lives as well as end this one. But today, I am focusing on where I am going and what will follow this beautiful, perfect June day.

"Mila! Mila's here!" I hear someone yell from the sea of blue. Loise scrambles towards me, wearing a beautiful blue dress and white sneakers. "Oh you look amazing!" she exclaims, looking at my floral romper and heeled sandals with a smile. "Wait 'til you see Rose!" she whispers in my ear before giving me a kiss on the cheek and pulling me towards the ocean that is the class of 2018.

"We get her first!" Samantha takes me from Loise, pulls me into a quick hug and tosses her disposable camera at Loise. "Take two please!" I don't have the opportunity to tell Samantha how beautiful she looks or comment on Elena's recently cut and styled hair before they appear on either side of me, each about 6 inches taller, and two pictures are taken.