{"id":181,"date":"2007-06-03T21:20:41","date_gmt":"2007-06-04T01:20:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.femilicious.com\/blog\/2007\/06\/03\/feted-fated\/"},"modified":"2007-06-03T21:21:41","modified_gmt":"2007-06-04T01:21:41","slug":"feted-fated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.femilicious.com\/blog\/2007\/06\/03\/feted-fated\/","title":{"rendered":"F\u00eated – Fated"},"content":{"rendered":"

I tend to blame myself. Maybe it’s that guilty recovering Catholic conscience. Whenever something bad happens (not far away, just close to me) I find myself scrutinizing my actions and role in the event and wondering where I made a mistake and what I should have done differently. Note — not wondering *if* I made a mistake, but *when* I did. <\/p>\n

I’m about to graduate. Convocation will be a celebration of sorts (hence the f\u00eate<\/em>). I barely remember my high school graduation which I had not intended to attend. \"photo<\/a>
\nAt the last minute I was asked to do one of the opening addresses so I ended up going. I delivered a speech in French about cows or something ridiculous and I wore my low-top sneakers with candy cane socks. For various reasons my family did not attend but they are planning to come to this. I haven’t completely figured out how to assemble my children from 2 different schools at different ends of the cities in the middle of the afternoon. I have just over a week still to sort that out. I anticipate the entire experience will be anticlimactic. The speeches will probably be long and will not relate to my life. The kids will likely get bored. I don’t particularly feel connected to the university since classes ended. I’ve been back a few times for conferences but it feels different somehow. I debate not going because it all seems too complicated today. The work is done, the grades earned… is the ceremony really important? Why did I want to go back in March when I applied to graduate?<\/p>\n

Part of me feels like I didn’t do all the things I should have. I know I worked hard, but maybe it wasn’t hard enough. This last year I did take it a little bit easy compared to first year. I didn’t accomplish as much as I did in the beginning. I wonder what I could have done differently and if it would have made a difference. I worry about next year and what comes after that. <\/p>\n

Since finishing classes a few weeks ago I’ve been trying to reconnect with the friends I had before I went back to school. I did my best to keep these relationships alive while life was crazy but we’ve all been through a lot in four years and you can’t just resume. We’re not the same people. It takes time to build intimacy and connection. <\/p>\n

Even at school I felt disconnected: I hardly saw the people from my program during this last semester. I didn’t have any women’s studies classes at all and as much as I loved my programming class I didn’t make any friends there. I miss bumping into my colleagues from school around campus. Even going back there like I have for a few conferences and events since classes ended it seems changed. I know it isn’t the campus though, it’s me. Like I know my undergrad is over and I’m in a different role there now. My identity is in limbo. I’m not an undergrad but I don’t yet feel like a grad student. <\/p>\n

Working at home is wonderful but isolating. I don’t miss the assignments and the deadlines. But I miss the contact with grownups. Poor Rob<\/a> has felt the brunt of this more than once when I’ve spent the day by myself. I’m trying to get out each day just so that I talk to a grown up — it reminds me of my days with little babies except this time I see it happening and am better resourced to stop it from becoming a problem. <\/p>\n

I wonder if other people are celebrating or if they are worrying like I am. I think my readiness to celebrate came and went when I handed in my last exam (and I did have a fabulous dinner with really good *Ontario* wine). Maybe I should allow this to pass quietly while I get on to the next thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I tend to blame myself. Maybe it’s that guilty recovering Catholic conscience. Whenever something bad happens (not far away, just close to me) I find myself scrutinizing my actions and role in the event and wondering where I made a mistake and what I should have done differently. Note — not wondering *if* I made […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6,17,4,39,37,40],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.femilicious.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.femilicious.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.femilicious.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.femilicious.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.femilicious.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.femilicious.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.femilicious.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.femilicious.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.femilicious.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}