So, I am officially inquiring into doctoral programs. I have...I think 7 programs that I am currently deciding between. I have inquired to one, which is why I feel like I can say my inquiries are official...I think I needed that dam to be broken in order to feel emboldened to inquire to other ones. I just need to see which ones I am really interested in before applying to others.
This evening, I figured I should put together a go-to package for applications. My resume, a cookie cutter statement of purpose that I can alter as necessary for each program, and of course, my transcripts. I had to go into my student account to get my transcripts, so I logged in, expecting the full hassle of going the long way of showing I completed all of the courses in my graduate program, because it hasn't been updated that I was actually awarded a degree.
It's been MONTHS of me checking to see if it was updated. I even reached out to my advisor in December to ask what the hold up was, and did I do something wrong? She said no, it can take a long time for them to update the system, and I should just sit tight. So I was like, ok, well, I guess it's just waiting forever time.
When I log in to the system today, it's been updated. Big ol' letters with DEGREE CONFERRED TO ONDREA KRYSTINE TUCCI. Master of Arts in Human Development. 2023. And like.
I got very emotional.
It hasn't really been real to me that I did a big thing, and I don't know that I really viewed getting a graduate degree as an accomplishment. It has just been this...thing I kinda did. What is a graduate degree, really? Nothing much. But I think I am starting to understand that I DID accomplish something, and it is for sure an achievement. I started crying, I kept saying "it's real! I really did it, I got a fucking graduate degree". I look at Derek, and he's smiling at me, and he starts rubbing my leg and he says, with all of the earnestness in the world, "honey, you did it! I am so proud of you! And just think," he says to me, as tears are running down my cheeks and I am allowing myself to bask in the praise of my accomplishment, "you are still not good enough for Dan!"
I'm not sure if I laughed so haard because what Derek said is a genuinely hysterical call back, or if I laughed so hard because I am sure it's true, but I definitely laughed loud and stopped crying immediately. What a way to go full circle on my college career, because I really did enroll in college because I thought it might make Dan see me worthwhile, and maybe if I looked as good on paper as he did, he would love me. That clearly did not work, and it was ridiculous of me to think that it would, but I found my way eventually. I enrolled as a business major, trying to follow Dan's bliss as my bliss, hoping fervently that was the ticket to getting him to love me, but when I realized that wasn't the move, I changed courses and ajors to psychology, and I could say I haven't really looked back, but that would be a lie. I got my undergraduated degree...with honors...in psychology, but my last two years were focused on the white supremacy of it all. And then my graduate degree was also focused on the antiqueerness of it all, while using an intersectional lens to shed light on the academic white supremacy of it all. I look back at where I came from all the time, and while I regret my initial intentions, I am pretty pleased with where I ended up. I'm here for me, for the right reasons.
And I have never been more ok with not being good enough for Dan. I hope 2013 me knows how proud of ourselves we'll be in eleven years, and how it doesn't even matter if Dan would even be good enough for us, or if he ever even WAS good enough for us (which I contend he was not). 2013 me should know that we are, and always have been, worthy.
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