The Pavlovich Family: Accomplished

This was meant to be posted on December 18, 2011.

I graduated yesterday. An event that is 15 years in the making. The ceremony was nice. It lasted about 2 hours but really didn't feel that long. The commencement speaker was amazing. I think she brought a tear to every one's eye. I was able to rein back the tears of emotion right on up to the part where the President of the University stood up and said that what she was about to say was the official part and then she started in on the "By the powers invested in me by the State of Kansas..." stuff.

I can't help but wonder what my grandparents would say if they were still alive. Or my dad. Lately I've been telling this joke that my grandparents didn't live long enough to see my dad graduate, and my father didn't live long enough to see me graduate, so I'm pretty glad that I can't have kids so that the cycle will finally stop. And then I give a nervous little laugh because its more of an appalling statement then a joke. My family wasn't able to make it out for my graduation for a lot of different reasons but that doesn't mean they weren't with me.

It dawned on me that I am the sum of all my experiences. I would love to be able to write that statement out as a mathematical equation but I am not that talented or mathematically inclined. The end result is something that is always growing and always changing but yet sometimes still looks like what it used to be. So with this in mind I decorated myself in some memorabilia on graduation day.

Under my graduation gown, I wore my old initials "AH". These gold broach pins were passed down when my grandmother Amelia Harris passed away and since I was the only one with AH for initials they became mine. I also got a cream pitcher in the shape of a cow but that story is neither here nor there. I also wore the gold cross that was given to me by my step-mother on my birthday. It is one of the three crosses that my father owned/wore. Both are symbols of my past mixed in with a little bit of the future. Both represent a deep love in a trinitarian sort of way.

My mom sent me a wonderful charm bracelet made especially for teachers. Each charm has a special message or meaning. It's a great symbol of my future.

On the outside of my gown I had the honor and privilege of wearing a yellow Honor's cord for Magna Cum Laude and the blue and white cord for the Pi Gamma Mu National Honor Society of Social Sciences.

I'll admit something that sounds a little silly now. The days before the graduation ceremony I would catch myself gazing at my grad gown like I did with my wedding dress. I couldn't wait to wear it and twirl around in it and swing my honor cords around like a 5 year old. I tried the hat on at least 5 times because none of it seemed real. And just like my wedding day, I wore the gown once and time seemed to pass by way to quickly. Here are a few of my favorite pictures:

Alex and I, after the ceremony and moments after I found out that I was Magna Cum Laude

My best and closest friend, Anna

Susie and Jim Hollis, two amazing people that come to see me often at work

Colton and Caden Mason hanging out at the house

The graduation cake

In the last few days people have asked me if I feel "accomplished". I'm not sure what that means exactly. My mind keeps replaying a scene from the book Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen where Mr. Darcy and Miss Bingley are explaining what a young woman must be able to do to truly say she is accomplished. It goes something like this:

"It is amazing to me," said Bingley, "how young ladies can have patience to be so very accomplished as they all are."
"All young ladies accomplished! My dear Charles, what do you mean?"
"Yes all of them, I think. They all paint tables, cover skreens, and net purses. I scarcely know any one who cannot do all this, and I am sure I never heard a young lady spoken of for the first time, without being informed that she was very accomplished."
"Your list of the common extent of accomplishments," said Darcy, "has too much truth. The word is applied to many a woman who deserves it no otherwise than by netting a purse, or covering a skreen. But I am very far from agreeing with you in your estimation of ladies in general. I cannot boast of knowing more than half a dozen, in the whole range of my acquaintance, that are really accomplished."
"Nor I, I am sure," said Miss Bingley.
"Then," observed Elizabeth, "you must comprehend a great deal in your idea of an accomplished women."
"Yes; I do comprehend a great deal in it."
"Oh! certainly," cried his faithful assistant, "no one can be really esteemed accomplished, who does not greatly surpass what is usually met with. A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half deserved."
"All this she must possess," added Darcy, "and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading."

I severely lack a thorough knowledge in music. I cannot sing, carry a tune, or conjure up a melody. I am a master of drawing stick-people. My dance moves look more like seizures. I brag that I known Canadian but this is another one of my bad jokes. But I do read extensively. Probably too much for my own good. So to answer the question... no, I do not feel accomplished. On a more serious note, I'm not sure what accomplished is supposed to feel like. If any thing I feel... humble. It has taken me so long to graduate that I thought it would never come. I never thought I would ever be published in a peer-reviewed journal, or be given an award by the Kansas Department of Education, or invited to an international Honor Society, or graduate in the top 3% of my class. If accomplished means surreal then sure.