![\"Photograph](\"https:\/\/catherinedenial.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/936057_10152622268074048_8807277721774138647_n.jpg\")
<\/a>I couldn\u2019t live with the contradiction, so I tried with all my might to embody the narrative of achievement and celebration that so many people told me was what I ought to feel. I pushed aside the frustration, wistfulness, and outright sadness I felt, and threw myself into the business of happiness like it was my new job. It saw me through a lot of turmoil, but when commencement ended and I had to say goodbye to my friend Charlotte, I broke down in ugly tears. I vividly remember that I couldn\u2019t rein it in \u2013 I remember sitting in the back seat of my parents\u2019 car still sobbing as we drove away, and looking out the back window as campus grew smaller and smaller and eventually disappeared.<\/p>\n
What no one had explained \u2013 who could, in my family, given that I was the first to go to college? \u2013 was that graduation was a liminal space. In the weeks up to commencement you are both a student and not; a roommate and not; a friend and not. Some part of you has transitioned and is yearning for what comes next, while other parts of you are in steadfast denial. There\u2019s a wild, raw desire to be free which makes those last papers and exams the most damning, pointless, stupid things you\u2019ve ever experienced. And yet you\u2019re probably holding onto something else \u2013 a favorite campus spot; the terrible fries in the cafeteria; the friends who are moving across country \u2013 with a white-knuckle grip.<\/p>\n
This is normal. It\u2019s frustrating and confusing but almost inescapable. There is nothing wrong with you because you don\u2019t know how to feel. There is nothing wrong with you because those feelings change on a dime.<\/p>\n