Bookends by CJ Q. '23

Five years ago I wore a barong and sablay.

In my high school graduation rites, there was a defined moment when we graduated. It was when the principal confirmed the graduates, through the authority vested in them from the Department of Education.

At the end of my gap year between high school and college, I wrote a blog post quoting the chorus of At Least It Was Here. It goes:

But I love you more than words can say
I can’t count the reasons I should stay
One by one they all just fade away
But I love you more than words can say

I wrote it because I didn’t feel “sad enough” about leaving the Philippines. I had friends I loved, and places I’d miss, but my friends had moved on and the places had changed. When I searched for reasons to stay, all I found was emptiness. A yearning for somewhere to call home, a place that’d last, not like the city I’d move out of, or all too short summer camps.

On my first post on the blogs, Colorful, I talk about Diana’s Baths, a series of waterfalls in North Conway, New Hampshire, that I visited as part of some pre-orientation program.

I had my first day of classes in MIT.

There’s this saying I’m attached to: when you graduate from MIT, you die in real life. Implicit is the Institute being a life in itself. You are born, or reborn, when you enter MIT. You die when you leave, only to be born, or reborn, wherever you end up next.

In literary practice, bookends are matching scenes at the beginning and end of the story, to illustrate change or lack thereof. When things happen in my life I force them into stories, and when a story is about to end I think of its beginning. If time will push me into cycles, so be it.

I had my last day of classes in MIT.

Last weekend, I went to a retreat with some friends, and I didn’t realize we were in North Conway, New Hampshire, until someone suggested a visit to Diana’s Baths.

The chorus of Something Better goes:

And all my life
I’ve seen these skies
It’s paradise, paradise
And every time
I leave this place
I’m terrified, terrified

My life in MIT is paradise, in both the I Have Truly Found Paradise sense, and the I Hate This Fucking Place sense, because you cannot have one without the other. When I leave MIT it will be the end of one life. I’m terrified, but what choice do I have?

There is no one moment when I “graduate”. The turning of the Brass Rat, the president’s charge for the graduates, the receipt of the diploma—these are pomp. The last day of class, the last dinner with friends, the day everyone moves out—these are circumstance.

Today I will wear a cap and gown.