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| If you look close enough, you'll see how I am actually freaking out inside. |
They say growing up is hard to do. I’ve
learned that the process of becoming an adult happens fast and doesn’t consider
if you’re ready or not. It invades your life and forces complicated decisions
that don’t always make everybody happy. As the soft-spoken hairy Italian
photographer prunes my robe and details the cap before gingerly placing it on
my head, a flood of life surges through my legs and up my spine. Six years and
I’m sitting on a stool attempting to hold a smile with some fake diploma held
across my trunk. I feel absolutely silly and can’t wait to leave the cramped
meeting-room-turned-photo-studio as my awkward levels reach a boiling point.
Also, this is the first time things really
start to hit hard: I am graduating.
Six years of post-secondary…..over. Now
what? I mean, I kinda know the answer, but I still find myself caught in my
first real existential crisis while I attempt to untangle the experience of
college and university and everything in between while trying to simultaneously
figure out what I want to do with my life. In the past month I’ve finished two
jobs at PARC and CDS, wrapped up the last projects and classes I’ll ever have
to deal with as an undergraduate student, started training and working with the
March of Dimes Canada, found a loft I can call home on May 1st, and
slid – nay, collided face first – into adulthood.
And how the hell do I sum everything up?
Three words: I know nothing. Of course, I know some things, but really…really,
I know nothing. That is what all this learning has taught me. The more I
know, the more I realize I don’t really
know anything. This isn’t a self-deprecation nor a self-pity psalm, but a
realization of the world and my puny insignificance that pushes me forward.
Only the most ignorant think they know everything, and I’m happy to be placed
in the category of little to no comprehension of things, for the earth has `so
much more to teach me. University changed me, and now I am ready embark on a
new scary adventure as an empty vessel of nothing.
Thank you, university.
Safe travels,
Aaron Turpin
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