30 days and change: Day 12
DAY ELEVEN: Describe the best day of your life.
Word Count: 491
For someone as dramatic as me, “the best day of my life” seems like several days I could identify. With such an effervescence for life, when good things happen, they can sometimes deem themselves as the “best days of my life,” so this is a hard choice. The best day of my life could be a few things: my wedding day, the day I was born (duh), or the day I received my undergraduate degree.
Let’s not get it twisted: The day I was born was probably the best day of my life, and everyone who experienced me then, now, and in any capacity knows this. But I think I can talk about the day I graduated as an undergrad. This deems itself one of the best days of my life, mainly because of how proud I made my family and friends. As a first-generation college student, capturing a degree was something that sometimes felt a bit out of reach. From financial obligations to securing housing after living on campus became too expensive, to fear of a new experience my first year, never leaving my room except to eat. Reaching that final point felt super magical.
In the weeks preparing for graduation, capturing signatures from varying departments, I watched many people scramble to ensure their graduation would still be taking place. I watched the memories I had built over the past several years in the utopia of “the yard” begin to fade away like water evaporating. However, I held on to those memories and dreams, took those with me, and let my imagination elevate me to the clouds. It was the excitement of being finished and the thirst for the big, wide world ahead of me. It marked the first time I felt I had accomplished something so significant that I could eat the entire world. It was the feeling of “what’s next” that I will never forget. I wish I could bottle that little piece of vivacity that you feel on graduation days and use it when needed.
Finally, I think it was one of the best days of my life because it closed a chapter of cementing blackness in a world that constantly asks you to decenter it. (at least for me). Growing up in a super white-centered space, attending an HBCU was the best thing that could have happened to me. It helped me see the importance of my identity as a person while also allowing me to love myself as a Black, Queer Male in society. (despite not necessarily being loved on for my queerness by the institution or its “morals and values”) It still taught me resilience and how to advocate for voices and identity within our community that are still being silenced or ignored. So, although some of these things happened throughout the years of my matriculation, they all rushed back on graduation day, making me feel so full, honored, and revered for my accomplishments.
