Hello, soon to be bride or groom!

The Graduate

May 8, 2008

If you haven’t heard, I graduated this past weekend. It was with slightly mixed but mostly positive emotions that I *finally* returned to LeTourneau University to walk across that stage. Looking back, it’s amazing and even a little scary just how quickly ten (yes, 10) years have flown by and how much I’ve changed in that time. A chapter of my life opened … and now closed.

I’ve many people–my family, friends, and wonderful fiancee–to thank, but how to tell such a story in the space of a blog post? And you might be asking … where in the world is LeTourneau any way?

I’m glad you asked.

This story began in Longview, TX back in 1998. I still remember previewing at a handful of schools and choosing LeTourneau because:

1. It was in Texas, close to friends and family and the southern culture I had grown up in, and

2. Their basketball coach showed the most interest in my playing there.

LeTourneau isn’t exactly your typical collegiate experience. It is staunchly conservative Christian (hooray for mandatory chapels and groupthink conformity), small (less than three thousand undergrads) and decidedly a sausage fest (when I began the guy:girl ratio was more than 4:1.) More typically, my primary focus was having fun: distancing myself from parental authority, burning my monthly allowance and minimum wage paychecks on meals out (and eventually booze) and things I didn’t need, like video games. I played Division III basketball for a bad team and went to class just enough to stay eligible (and even then just barely.)

While I remain close to a handful of the friends I met there, I’m sure by now you’ve already got that I struggled, especially academically. I did just enough to get by for almost five years before throwing in the towel with a mere 9 credit hours to go. I flamed out of my final semester, failing 12 of my 18 credit hours and notching 2 D’s in the remainder. My once passable GPA was in ruins and below the minimum 2.0 graduating requirement. I was through with school for the indefinite future; never mind the tens of thousands of dollars and countless hours of argument my parents had sunk into my on-again/off-again affair; the love interest to which I could never seem to remain faithful.

Fast forward almost four years later. My brother had graduated that same school and even my sister from hers only weeks before. There are handful of events common to human life that seem to initiate the changing of perspective: the death of a loved one, the birth of a baby … or mawwiage (Princess Bride flashback … whoa.) I was getting ready to propose to an amazing woman and inevitably I thought more and more of the time that had been invested in my as-yet unrealized achievement. I thought about not only my time, but that of my mom and my dad, who had selflessly given away months, if not years, of their own lives to pay for something that I hadn’t seen through. I thought about my job–the talents I possessed and the skills I had worked so hard to form–and I thought about the money I wasn’t earning, in part because I couldn’t slap that “B.S.” onto my resume.

Could I really ask Toni to marry me knowing that I wasn’t doing all–or even half–of what I could to provide financially for our family? Sure, money isn’t happiness, but it’s easier to be happy when your basic needs and comforts are assured. And what, really, stood in the way? A degree doesn’t ensure prosperity at a job I love, but did I really want to chance being denied those things because I was too selfish (and proud) to put in a little more work and cross that finish line?

So I went back. I couldn’t return to campus, but through a lot of work and a lot of help from Dr. Baas (lifetime teacher award winner in my book) managed to procure all of the necessary permissions and paperwork to finish those few remaining hours online. 9 became 21 as I enrolled in extra classes to inflate my GPA, but eventually I got it done.

Many people have asked me, so now what? Onto a new job? Bigger and better? And what does it feel like?

It feels … surreal. My life has felt surreal lately any way … I still wake up some days and think, holy crap, I’m engaged … I’m going to be married soon. Like … when did this happen? And this too felt … almost like I had stepped outside of myself and all I had ever known in this place. I struggled bitterly with my school, my teachers and myself for years and now … almost imperceptibly, without even realizing it, I squeaked across that line.

I told Toni throughout that week that I was paranoid we’d drive up to Longview only to find out that I had forgotten to turn in some form, forgotten to take a class, that someone in Academic Records forgot to tell me that I wouldn’t in fact be graduating after all. Matter of fact, a small part of me didn’t really believe that I had done it, couldn’t believe even after I had walked across that stage, swung my little tassel across my big head and to the left.

Not even until the ceremony had ended and I walked out of that new auditorium and posed for pictures and received my congratulations and walked into the Education building–that old, used-to-be-smelly building where Gail Ruby, my extremely overweight Physics teacher huffed and puffed her way up and down those stairs as if she was going to fall over at any minute–and recited my name to the smiling lady and received my diploma … then, and only then, when I opened it and saw that my name was actually etched across that $100,000 piece of paper … did I, could I, really believe that I had done it.

I had achieved.

I spent that day with family and my soon-to-be-wife eating Bodacious BBQ and a chocolate ice cream cake. And for a brief afternoon, my life was totally complete.