The Art of Clapping for Everyone Else

It’s graduation season again.

My social media is flooded with caps, gowns, and people crying happy tears while holding diplomas. Everyone looks so done. So finished. So legitimately, officially done.

Don’t get me wrong! I am genuinely happy for everyone crossing that stage. I really am. But there’s this very specific feeling that hits during graduation season when you’re a doctoral student with no finish line in sight. It’s not jealousy exactly. It’s more like watching a building go up around you, floor by floor, someone else’s blueprint, someone else’s deadline, while you’re still sketching in the margins, revising the foundation, wondering if the structure you’re building even has a name yet.

And then comes the quiet arithmetic. How many more years. How many more drafts. How many more times will I say “not yet” when someone asks.

So you learn to celebrate differently.

You celebrate finishing a chapter draft at 1am. You celebrate when a reviewer says “minor revisions” instead of “reject.” You celebrate summer break…which, let’s be honest, isn’t really a break, just a slightly quieter season for chasing proposal deadlines with the windows open and pretending the sunshine counts as a reward.

And maybe, slowly, quietly, you start to realize that something is finishing. Just not in the way you expected.

Here’s the thing though: I’ve crossed that stage before. Twice, actually! for two master’s degrees that somehow happened at the same time. I know what it feels like to hold that diploma. The relief. The strange emptiness right after.

So yes, I am still here. Still in the long middle. Still “sketching” something that doesn’t have a name yet. And life goes on.