Harvard: I Came, I Ran Around Like Crazy, and (Almost) Conquered

A huge point of this blog was to share about my amazing, once-in-a-lifetime experience as a graduate student at Harvard.

Big fail there.

But maybe now that I am done, searching for employment, and unable to take an expensive vacation...

I will write.

I know, I said that before. But now I've got time! Freedom! Time! Did I mention time!?

This whirlwind graduate program filled just about every minute of every day as I tried to take it all in. And now, like a rollercoaster coming to a dead stop, I feel a little disoriented from the ride.

The funniest thing about it all is this:

See that beautiful Harvard crimson gold-sealed envelope?

The one I got as I walked across the stage, the one I was holding as I shook hands with the dean, and the one that was supposed to have my diploma in it?

Yeah....about that...

I opened it up a couple days after the ceremony and realized...

No diploma.
Everyone else had their diploma though.
I had a mini panic attack. Had I opened it up that day and lost my diploma?
Had someone else taken it and planned to take my identity? (brief thought that actually crossed my mind)

Then I looked again and noticed a paper in the envelope that explained it all.

I kind of forgot to do one leeetle thing.
Some sort of loan exit counseling. I mean, I totally remembered to do it. For one of my loans. Thought I was covered for both of them. And then didn't realize there were actually...two.

Whoops.

So no official diploma yet.

I was kinda bugged. I mean, I remembered to do a hundred billion things leading up to graduation, including all those student experience surveys, class review surveys, arts interests surveys...they just kept going. And finished all my papers, assignments, internship wrap-up assignments, all of it.

But that one thing.

So. I have yet to *officially* have a diploma from Harvard.

It's kind of hilarious--and just sums up my year to a tee. I tried to do everything possible to soak in every experience, to take every opportunity, to jump over every hurdle. And I missed that one thing I was supposed to do.

And you know what? It's okay. Sometimes you miss things. Sometimes you don't a hundred percent conquer every mountain. Sometimes you get to laugh hard at yourself.

And those are the best times of all!

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To Run

I had the chance to watch and cheer

the runners today.

As we walked up to the marathon,

The last mile of the race,

The tears started to well up.

I didn’t expect to have such an immediate emotional reaction.

But it came.

The sound of crowds cheering and the sight of runners running

brings me back to a race I ran

where crowds cheered me on

A physical marathon I ran

at a time when I was also running an emotional marathon

I didn’t know I could or would finish.

Seeing those runners reminded me of that moment

and reminded me that we are all in a race.

Life is a marathon we are all running.

Something we prepared for

and now find ourselves in the middle of.

And there I was watching this race—entranced by their putting one step in front of the other

and another and another.

I loved them. I loved them for running. I loved them for training and being there and showing up and just running.

I was reminded that no one’s race is the same.

I watched a man throw his arms up to illicit the cheers of others.

Such confidence and energy.

I watched a shivering woman who, in the last mile, was walking, unable to run anymore.

But though she was shaking, there she was, wrapped in an emergency blanket, with a woman in an army uniform, arm around her, walking with her in this last leg of the race.

And it was just beautiful.

Because, as tired and cold and shaking as she was—she was not alone.

None of the runners were alone. They ran next to others and they were cheered on by others.

Every runner passed through hundreds of people

who were cheering them on.

And I thought about life and how

Often we don’t see those people who are cheering us on.

But I felt and was reminded

that there are those who cheer us on—sometimes seen, but more often unseen.

And our role—

is to run.

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