It’s an odd thing. I don’t want attention, or any celebration. Hell, the two other students trying to make a big deal about it sent me deep into flashback. But at the same time it feels so anti-climatic. Two years of intense work, a lot of time and energy and, I don’t know it sounds a little corny, but a lot of me went into that work, a lot of personal development and baggage, and then suddenly it all just ends. And it did feel really sudden too. When I got my final draft back from my supervisor I went through it and put little sticky notes on, saying fix this, reference needed, little ? for when I didn’t understand her comment. When I was done it looked bad, there was a lot of things needing attention, and yes that added to the series of freak outs I had over this. But I worked through them, did the right thing, the expected thing and pulled one sticker off at a time. In the end it didn’t take as long as I thought it would, and it didn’t require as much work. Now one part of that was that feeling of just being over it, so a couple of corrections weren’t probably given the time they needed, but so be it. But it felt so sudden, the moment I pulled off the last yellow sticker. One moment it looked like weeks of rewrites, the next it was just under 2 weeks later and I had finished.

So now I get to be all contrary and contradictory. I hated people making a big deal about it. The day I handed it in was horrific because everyone was making a big deal about it. It really was. And I’m still working through the consequences of that. But there’s also this odd feeling of being let down, of it not meaning anything. Now before all you good friends write and say it means something to you, I get that. I can even get that it meant something to the other students, although I don’t think that was as much about me, as about the idea of completion, they weren’t celebrating me per se. I think it comes down to something that’s been featuring quite heavily in my life and thoughts lately, the lacking. I’ve always felt I have lacked in some way. That I didn’t have something that would make me acceptable, lovable, or whatever it was that made people care about other people. I’ve also had a major lack of normal life experiences, the things that teach you how to be. I’ve never had any personal celebrations in my life, never had a birthday, a graduation, any celebration. I’m lacking those experience, and therefore also the understanding and knowledge that comes with them. The idea of a celebration scares me beyond imagining, but at the same time there’s this little kernel that goes, it would have been nice.