The Graduate
Ladies and Gentlemen… Zac Medema, MS SLP:
Finally. He has graduated. (Not finally as in it took a long time or anything, he did it in the correct time frame!) Now brace yourselves because I’m about to brag shamelessly about my husband. If that makes you uncomfortable please relocate to CNN.com where you read more important things, like an investigative report on whether or not Matt Lauer and his wife really broke up.
I’m not gonna lie – when they all moved their tassels from one side to the other I teared up a little. Partially from pride, partially from relief, partially from total excitement.
Pride, for the obvious reasons: Zac has gone to school for nearly 20 full years. The past 3 without even a summer break. It has been a long, hard, exhausting road and he rarely ever complained. I think that’s important. It bums we out when people complain about school – higher education in particular – its a blessing, not a curse for a person to spend that much time learning.
Not that there aren’t plenty of things to gripe about for sure! But I feel like Zac never lost sight of why he was in school and that he was lucky to be there.
Even when life was at its cruelest, his dedication to his education never wavered. Ever. The man has many virtues but dedication stands above them all and it has been a lesson to watch him tackle every class, client and new experience head on without fear or doubt until he made it to the finish line and snagged that diploma. And that’s a lot to be proud of…so it stirred up the first tear.
Then there was the relief…There have been bumps big and small in the road to this moment and at times it seemed like a day didn’t go by without the phrase “I’ll be working soon and then it will be better.”
But we made it. We freakin’ made it. So when he moved his tassel from left to right, it was like a personal victory for me. Like I brought home just enough bacon to get us here, to pay for that over priced cap and gown (seriously it was like $65) and now I can breathe a sigh of relief. I can relax man, now I only gotta fry the bacon! And knowing you’ve got bacon to fry is a good, good thing…so maybe another tear stirred up from all the relief.
And finally, the excitement. This time, graduation felt much less like an ending note and more like a beginning one.
I’m so excited to watch Zac build his career. He’s humble. But I’m not. So let me just say now, he’s about to become a big deal : ) and he’s going to use all his talent to ease the challenges of a lot of lucky kiddos and families. I can’t wait to watch that happen.
I’m also excited because for the first time ever, the hubs will know what its like to be done at 5 o’clock. He’s never known the work day to just end. There have always been tests and reports and papers to be done. I’m excited for him to watch Dancing with the Stars uninterrupted. He is too.
And I’m really excited about what we both kind of feel is the next chapter for us. I’m sure everyone would assume getting married was the start of a new chapter but in a lot ways, it wasn’t. Getting hitched changed nothing really. But this, this graduating business, this is a change. It’s like we’ve been set free. We’re both real and official adults now. And look out, cus I’ve no idea what adventures we’ll tackle next…and that’s very, very exciting.
So between the pride, relief and excitement I got a little misty eyed. Thank goodness I had my camera to hide behind.
After all the pomp and circumstance we drug our family out to the quad for some celebratory photos. They loved it! They were so thrilled to hike all the way across campus on what was an unusually cold May morning so that they could be subject to my Nazi-like photo orders. Good people, I tell ya : )
A huge and heartfelt thanks to each and every person pictured in those photos. We never would have made it without your love, support and good humor. We love you guys!
After torturing those fine people with enough photos to choke a horse, we hosted a graduation party! We’ve never hosted a graduation party. It was fun and exciting. It made me want 15 babies so that I can plan and host 15 birthday parties per year and countless graduation parties. But then I realized how expensive that would be.
And finally, to my graduate…
I’m ridiculously proud of you, excited for you and thankful every day that you married me.
PS…You look hot in your new work polos. Even the purple one.
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