We are unusual and tragic and alive. - Dave Eggers

I want to start out by thanking Facebook. Yup, Facebook. It's helped me keep track of the ins and outs of my friends/acquaintances/that dude down the street and all of their comings and goings. Since I got my Facebook back in 2005, I've watched the waves of life ebb and roll across social media and it looks like this:

Wave 1: High school graduations

Wave 2: 21st birthdays

Wave 3: College graduations

Wave 4: Engagements

Wave 5: Weddings

Wave 6: Grad School graduations

Wave 7: Babies

Wave 8: Divorce

Wave 9: Remarriage

Wave 10: More babies

Now, obviously, I'm oversimplifying, perhaps a little too cynically, and a lot of these, if not all, are removable, moveable, optional, and mix-up-able. But anyone growing up in the social media age will tell you that their Facebook newsfeed is full of graduation caps and gowns, alcohol induced duck faces and peace signs (Ladies, this is NEVER attractive, so just don't do it), and after a while all the white dresses, diamond rings, and babies start to look alike. Don't get me wrong, I love all my friends as well as their kids and spouses, but I'm constantly inundated by the most exploited generation of children (generally speaking). My generation and their children are growing up on the internet with, literally, everyone and their mom watching.

Now that that's out of the way, my grad school graduation is in two days. Originally, I didn't care and I wasn't going to go. Being the homeschooled nerd I didn't have a high school graduation, and college graduation involved me literally kicking and screaming in order to get my parents to make the drive from Boston to Pennsylvania with my siblings. Yup, that's right, they weren't going to go. Needless to say, that left a pretty sour taste in my mouth for graduations.

Back about three years ago when I first started grad classes at UMass Boston, out of nowhere and without being asked, Mother Dearest informed me that she would NOT be attending my graduation. To shorten the lengthy earful I got, she did not support my return to school, emotionally, financially, or otherwise, and she would not be attending. My response? It's ok, I never asked you.

Well, here we are, over three years later, and my grad school graduation is exactly six years and two weeks after my college graduation. I came. I saw. I conquered. Blah blah blah. In the past three years I not only went back to school and finished my English M.A. degree, but I did the majority of that while working full-time and going to class at least half- if not full-time. In 2010, I traveled to Greece, Athens and Agia Marina, Aegina, and then from there to London before returning to Boston. Big deal right? Yeah did I mention I was by myself, living out of a backpack, and staying in hostels? Oh and somewhere in there I may or may not have flipped a vespa and have road rash scars down my leg. NBD.

At the end of 2010, beginning of 2011, I decided to leave my full-time job to finish out school and really focus without the stress of an executive assistant position and all the traveling I had been doing for work. I left my financial security blanket, an awesome boss who treated me like another daughter, and friends I'd been with for three and a half years to move from Boston to a small suburb just south of the city. In 2012, I broke off an incredibly unhealthy relationship and began a relationship with the love of my life, and in December I finished my thesis on Eurasian/Chinese/Korean/Japanese American ethno-racial identity in literature (try explaining that to someone in a short sentence) while still working to support myself living in an apartment alone.

Now, in 2013, I'm in a job that I love and am living with my awesome boyfriend. I have both a bachelor's and master's degree under my belt, and as long as I don't get bored, those will probably be the last. The past three years have been an insane journey, and now, from where I'm sitting, graduation means something totally different to me. 

That cap and gown represents the fight to escape an oppressive living situation and liberate myself from it and become my own person. It represents the financial and emotional struggle and lack of familial support I've had to handle instead with the support of my urban and adoptive families and friends. It represents independence and pride in the fact that I put myself through school with absolutely no financial help from anyone else. Me. Me. Me. Pick me! I did it.

Yes, that piece of paper is important to me. Yes, I'm more "educated." But everything I learned in the past three years wasn't in a classroom. It sounds so cliche, but the truth is, I learned more about life and myself and my passions in simple passing conversations with my advisor over a cup of coffee than I did in a lecture. My grades, while I'm proud of them, are nothing compared to friendships and connections I've made with classmates and the inside jokes and looks we'd share in the hallways or across the table while we rolled our eyes at that person who just would not shut up. For anyone who's walked at a college ceremony, you know they don't even give out the actual diplomas at graduation, and I've had my official one since mid-February. In the years to come, my diploma (if I don't manage to get it into a frame and on the wall soon!!), may get moved, misplaced, dusty, or lost. Graduation is something else entirely. My graduation is my own ceremony of survival and growth. My own recognition of the dedication I've had the past few years, academically and personally. I did this. I made it. I'm walking for me. Not for the inevitable Facebook photos or for my family or friends, but for me.

#BostonStrong

I have nothing smart or witty to say. But I will say, that last night I got the best sleep I've had all week. I can say that I feel safe again. And I will say that I have never been more proud to be an American and a Bostonian.

I love that dirty water...

It's been 11 1/2 years since September 11, 2001. I'm 11 1/2 years older and hopefully 11 1/2 years wiser. However, today took me back to that moment when I saw the plane hit the second tower...but this time it was in my backyard. My home.

I was 15 years old on 9/11. I remember watching in horror as my previously safe little world collapsed around me. I had to face the fact that the world isn't the safe place I had hoped it was, and I grew up in a world prior generations knew nothing about. Taking my shoes off and going through serious security before boarding a plane has just always been, and I don't really remember going through the scanners without it. Heightened security and restrictions became the norm, and people younger than me don't remember or never really experienced a lack of security, whether for better or worse. While I still believed that there was good in everyone, it was now accompanied with a high level of suspicion of all humanity.

I'll admit, I didn't really cry when the towers fell. I didn't cry when I saw the Pentagon in flames. I was shaken and I was scared, but it wasn't near me. It wasn't real.

Today, shit got real. 

I didn't even know what happened until friends in Pennsylvania and New Jersey started texting and calling me to find out where I was and if I was alive or hurt. I cried watching the news as pandemonium broke out in Copley Square. I bawled as I kept hitting redial on my phone trying to get a hold of everyone I knew who was near the Boston Marathon today, answering texts in between rings with a hasty "I'm not in the city. I'm safe" as more people were demanding to know if I was ok. Cell service was in and out at best, making it hard to track people down, let alone quickly. I freaked when I couldn't find my brother for hours and became even more hysterical watching streets I walked hundreds to thousands of times run red with blood and appendages of the injured.

Today, my world fell apart.

I would never be so bold as to compare one tragic event to another, as every tragedy in which even one human life is lost is horrific. But for me, Marathon Monday, April 15, 2013, was my personal 9/11, and I'm sure many Bostonians would say the same. I've spent the rest of my day going back and forth between tears, anger, shock, and back around again. 

Today, however, Boston has shown her true colors. Marathon runners sprinted even further to hospitals after running 26.2 miles to donate blood. Other runners, along with bystanders and volunteers, turned and ran toward the blasts to help the wounded, without regard for their own safety. Despite the mayhem, there was a glimmer of the kind of humanity I have always believed existed. Despite all of this, we're going to come out stronger. 

I love Boston. I love my home.