The One with the Graduation

This is the fourth time I've tried to start this post.

This morning I woke up at 8:00 am to blaring disco music and lots of loud people. It was Bay to Breakers. It's supposed to be a run through the city but, because San Franciscans love any excuse to dress up and drink, it always becomes a crazy, boozy parade. My parents and inlaws had the joy of seeing naked running men as well as lots of people in costumes peeing on houses. Speaking of ... a woman on our block was outside with a hose spraying anyone who tried to pee here. This is SO not the point of this post. This paragraph was supposed to say "This morning I woke up at 8:00 am and this afternoon I graduated from law school."

There are a lot of times when I don't think this is a huge accomplishment. I mean, over 400 people graduated with me and that is from only one of the hundreds of law schools in the country. And yet it started to hit me last night when I was surrounded by my supportive, generous friends who ate pizza, drank champagne, and danced to Sean Kingston with me in the hallway and with my dad to David Bowie. And it hit me a little more when I was in my robe in the parking lot of the hotel where my parents were staying a man said - "Doctorate in what field? Congrats!" And then when I sat sweating from the heavy robe in a packed audotorium between 2 of my best law school friends listening to an amazing professor followed by Willie Brown (the 2 preceding student speakers, not so much), it hit me a little more. I got all choked up. And I looked around, and I thought, damn. I busted ass and I did this.

And at dinner, toasting with the husband, his parents, his brother, my sister in law to be, my parents, and my grandmother, I realized that I did this with the support of everyone I love so much. And even though I'm the first in my family to go to college, let alone graduate from law school, I did it all standing on their shoulders. And crying on the shoulders of friends who magically knew when to get me drunk, take me shopping, or make me suck it up and get over myself.

Willie, I will remember what you said today and I will honor all the people who got me to this point and do good things.