I’m done. At the age of (going-on) 29, I finally stepped up and achieved a Bachelor’s of Arts degree in Theories of Writing. Four years ago, when I was sitting on the couch in my apartment, discussing with my roommate the idea of going back to school full-time at the age of 25, of moving to a different state to live in the dorms with a bunch of 18-year-old kids, of leaving my good paying job to go study the kinds of subjects that have no utilitarian application in today’s world, of embarking on a quest that for many years I had sworn off as unworthy of my time and effort…well, let’s just say that I didn’t truly believe that I would last all four years.

And if I had to do it all alone, there’s no way I would have. But I had such an amazing group of people who were kind enough to take an interest in me that there was absolutely no way for me to fail. From my friends and family in Massachusetts who gave me nothing but their utmost confidence to the brilliant and inspiring people who became my family in Vermont, there was not one moment when I was without a helping hand.

As amazing as everyone was, there is one person who was with me for every step of the way. One person who was a part of my every decision and whose heart and mind guided me even more than than my own. Her and I were together from the very first moment. What began as as a beautiful friendship blossomed into the kind of love that the poets bleed to describe. As I move into the next phase of life, there’s not a day that goes by when I don’t offer my thanks to whatever it was that made her stop and introduce herself to the dorky old man sitting under that tree.

(”whatever it was that made her”: she taught me that we are all beings with a history; I offer my thanks to the people, places, and things that shaped her history and led her to that tree)

But enough of the sentimental shit. On to a description of Graduation Week.