On May 10th, I was blessed to graduate from the Illustrious Howard University. Surrounded by my friends and family, I got to walk across that stage and get my degree– a degree I worked so hard for, cried for, prayed for. Yet, somehow, I’m still filled with lackluster feelings.

When you graduate, everyone asks you, “how does it feel?” because you’ve just completed a major accomplishment in life; but, it feels real and surreal at the same time. I’m still contemplating what it means to be the third person in my immediate family to earn a degree. I’m not the first to break any generational curse. I’m not a first generation college graduate. I just graduated with the hundreds of thousands of other kids like me.

Truthfully, I think it meant more to my family for me to have this degree. There were so many times when I wanted to go home. There were too many times when I just needed a break. I love Howard University, but it completely depleted me some semesters. The summers just weren’t enough. The winter break was entirely too short. It felt like I was drowning in it all, my schoolwork, my jobs, my extracurriculars just trying to catch up with the status quo.

I remember calling my mother in tears multiple semesters just asking for a break and instead of being greeted with understanding, my parents (the tough love duo) told me no over and over again. They called me crazy, they invalidated my feelings and health, asked me to complete intensive psycho-therapy, and told me to be stronger. The drowning feeling followed me home when I went home and was reminded that I had to be great and to not graduate in the four years I was given meant I was a failure.

As I stood outside the gymnasium, degree in hand, my mother and father by my side, I wondered what my life would’ve been like had I been given the option to just go home. If I had just been gifted the opportunity to breathe…

There’s not many studies showing generational trauma passed down in black families leads to stronger offspring. We carry the anxiety of years of oppression, untreated depression, and unanswered prayers. Maybe black families on the brink of the middle class aren’t afforded the luxury of letting their children breathe. We don’t get gap years or trips backpacking through Europe while we decide what we’re doing next. What we have is our one foothold in the suburbs, the only black face on the hill, and a responsibility to our community to maintain our presence so that others may one day join us there. In the meantime, we’re outrunning the fear that one day it will all go away. We’re not allowed to go home (for however brief a time) because the trauma of our past keeps following us. We keep going.

That one semester at home, maybe I could’ve fixed my relationship with my parents. I would’ve had more time to talk with them instead of our rushed phone calls that happen once or twice a week. I might’ve gotten my life together with a cohesive plan. Maybe I could’ve found the reason why I needed this degree so badly. Honestly, I only wanted to go back to Howard so I could keep running away from home.

I earned a degree, but that didn’t fix my relationship with my family. It didn’t make me any more equipped to handle my mental health, let alone take on the world. I graduated with these expectations that my accomplishment would fix everything and that it would all be worth it. I thought I would feel the gratification of finishing my degree and with that, all my worries would’ve been gone and my family problems would’ve been healed because everything my family worked for was done.

In actuality, I lost sight of what I was doing everything for. When you’re going to class every day because your family demands it of you, you forget why and who you should be pursuing your success for. Needless to say, it’s why I found my graduation so anticlimactic. I say all this to say, your journey is yours and graduation time can be triggering to those of us who’ve had obstacles get in the way of our original timelines, but still trust the process and believe that your time is coming. It’s harder to lean on faith, but I like to believe everything happens for a reason. Remember: you’re not on your own plan, but some higher power has a bigger plan for your life. Find comfort in that and hopefully it leads you to your purpose.