Today I donned the goofy black robe, the mortar board hat, and the tassel that smacks you in the eye when you walk. Graduation Day. In all honesty it was rather anticlimactic. I actually finished my formal education in December and opted not to participate in the ceremony because I was also getting married, starting a job, and moving in the same week. And by waiting until May I could graduate with my new wife.

So I’ve had my diploma sitting in the filing cabinet since February. Which means all the pomp and circumstance was really just for show. It was just a big photo opportunity. For everyone else it was a culminating experience. They finished their last finals yesterday. They were still packing up their dorm rooms and moving–for some people it was back home, for others it was into a new apartment. They were still looking for jobs and trying to decide what they were going to do in their immediate post-college years.

I, on the other hand, don’t have any of those worries. Yesterday I went to work and answered e-mails and scheduled some articles and did what needed to be done. On Monday I’ll go back, answer more e-mails, and go to a meeting or two. I’ve been living in my apartment since December. I took my last final in December. There’s not much of a change.

But there was a glimmer of something. There was an acknowledgment of my accomplishment. I went to school for three and a half years and earned this really expensive piece of paper that tells me I went to school for three and a half years. But more than that it was the smiles of friends and family that said you’ve worked hard and you’ve learned a thing or two about life. I certainly have a few more things to learn, like how to make loan payments, but it’s a step in a new direction.

It’s not an end, it’s a beginning, as one of the not-so-spectacular graduation speakers said. A new beginning. Not that anything is really over. It’s a transition of sorts. The last five months have been a transition of sorts, and I guess I’m realizing that all of life is transition. It never really settles down enough for you to get used to it.