The looking glass
pmonteiro@theguidon.com

It’s ironic and illogical but, right now, I am afraid to graduate…or, to be more specific, of what happens afterwards.

I usually associate graduation with loss. It’s an experience of death, actually. At its arrival, one’s comfortable life comes to an end. Familiar places are replaced by the unknown. The scariest part: cherished people and relationships vanish. Sometimes, for good.

I felt this “loss” after finishing my JTA semester abroad. Unlike other locations (France being the clearest example), there weren’t five or ten of us Ateneans where I went to; we were just two. My JTA-mate had the perfects words for our experience: “a fleeting moment”—it was good while it lasted. With the seas, continents and timezones keeping us apart, we rarely hear from our overseas friends anymore. I admit that I envy my batchmates who are all commemorating their JTA anniversaries with dinners, gimmicks, and reunions, while my own remembrance seems to be limited to a mere Facebook post with a couple of likes and a solo browsing of old photos and videos.

Losing friends to graduation is a loss of one’s self. There’s genius in the saying, “friends tell us who we are.” They see and know our vulnerabilities and tell us to be strong. They always remember our quirks and tell us to laugh at our own weirdness. Most importantly, they forgive us for our plainness and imperfection and tell us to accept it and be better next time. My literature professor, Rica Bolipata-Santos, likened a friend to an archivist—in our relationships with them, they take “spirit pictures” of us, that we only need to give them a call when we lose sight of who we are.

I guess that’s what’s dreadful about graduation—the possibility of losing one’s way and self in the harsh concrete jungle of modernity, of being alone in an unforgiving world without a navigator and sidekick at our side.

With about five months left, signs of the inevitable end are manifesting itself. Some of my friends are already getting calls from multinational firms. Some are devoting themselves to their exclusive relationships. Some are making their final preparations for migrating abroad. Some, well, are simply fading away.

Ma’am Rica said that things are never lost—they are just misplaced, are taken in by someone else, or are transformed into something else. To quote her, “[I] hope that this distance between us will make us better friends and if not, then to believe that what has transpired between us has value on its own and that to have had that is gift enough.”

There’s another line that best encapsulates all these. I used to scoff at it because it was too cheesy, but now I see that it does make sense—a reminder to those afraid of saying farewell (not goodbye) to friends, something that should be kept in mind and heart as the march towards March continues. Call me dramatic, but it goes like this:

Don’t cry because it ended; smile because it happened.