Disappointment
THE (UN)EXPERIENCE OF GRAD: CHAPTER 1
Written by: Blue Acacia
I didn’t go to my high school graduation.
When I lied in bed, the entirety of June, I imagined all the possibilities of what might happen. I imagined the large stage where hundreds of us would go and receive fake diplomas. It would be lit in golden lights with purple and silver (grey) ribbons around large plastic bouquets. I would be on the far left of the stage, somewhere in the middle of all the students.
Our graduation gowns cost about $20. The gown itself was about three pieces and covered a dress entirely. We also received a hat that came apart too often but looked nice from afar. If we were asked to throw our hats across the ballroom, they would float like a parade of cicadas rising from the ground.
I imagined the food as well. At my sister’s graduation, there were treats of Coca-Cola and cookies. Additionally, there were small decorative one-bite cakes that you could only take one of despite my watering mouth. My sister and I, once reunited after the ceremony, made a beeline for the food and beverage, trying to push through crowds of suits and gowns reflecting the diversity of our school.
I didn’t imagine the valedictorian speech. Every speech I had listened to up until then was bland and corporate, just as the schools liked it. In my own year, I knew exactly who would win and I should’ve been thrilled. But I wasn’t because by the time I was lying in my own bed, imagining a graduation I’m not going to see, I had already let my joy sink through the mattress.
The pandemic made my imagination sharp. Suddenly I had time. Suddenly I can lie on my carpeted floor reading The Joyluck Club while waiting for my watercolour painting done in a regular notebook to dry. Suddenly I can watch more and more motorsports, waking up earlier and earlier to turn on my television and lie in my bed watching the introductions. Suddenly, evening walks watching the sunset go down earlier and earlier while getting cake to bring home are more frequent.
All of my favourite things are being thrust before my eyes. Where is the line where I recite that “suddenly, I am happier than ever”?
I sweat away my happiness like gym class on a summer afternoon. The pandemic made my imagination sharp and my brain a steak knife slicing into itself over and over.
Lying in my bed, no sheet on my body because of the sweltering sun, I was annoyed. I tried not to care about the valedictorian. But I knew that when I didn’t care, I was instead bitter. I was bitter that in all of those imaginations, probably shared by other students, probably shared by people I called my friends—I did not exist.
All of my imaginations dissolve into the ground, burying themselves amongst pipelines and tree roots. The joylessness didn’t end there.
I didn’t go to my high school graduation. It was a prerecorded video, uploaded to our school system like a report card. You had access until July 31st. Log in with your school email and password.
There’s no way I would ever watch that. A lifeless video put together from multiple parts of Ontario, probably with lazy editing and poor graphics from a team of video enthusiasts and one passionate artist.
Watching only the first five minutes of my school’s video concert and not getting to watch my own solo because of poor wifi was a better experience than receiving the email of our ‘graduation.’ Hounding people for curatorial responses like a debt collector while we put on an online art show was a better experience than receiving the email of our ‘graduation’.
The online video graduation was a mess. But our school was run by cool parent archetypes that still dabbed. I was barely fond of any of them, but they weren’t the worst. They know what gets the kids kicking!
Besides, we still needed our diplomas. And our $40 yearbooks. We needed our proof so that we could in fact enroll in a post-secondary institution. I needed my proof to go to OCAD.
One June afternoon, they set up an event to not only give diplomas, overpriced yearbooks, and even a little gift bag, but also an opportunity to take grad pics in your grad gown. It was enough persuasion for me to get up out of my bed for once. I decided that I had to go.
Blue Acacia is a creative writing student at OCAD with a passion for the mundane, personal, and fantastical.