Deadlines, Dorm Rooms, and the Last Day

Wow! I’m officially a Harvard graduate and a Naval officer, and it’s time for my very last post on this blog. To keep up with me in future, be sure to keep track of my new blog – I'd really appreciate it if you subscribe for notifications using the form on the site, and if you do, you'll also get a free ebook – and follow me on my Facebook page Lauren Mandaville – Blogger. I’m out of my dorm and in the real world now; here are some thoughts on Commencement Week, as well as my final and broadest appraisal of all the deadlines and dorm rooms of my college career.

I was at home, as you know, for finals period and senior week, so I just got back to campus on Monday in time for commissioning on Wednesday and graduation on Thursday. The other day someone told me college graduation was the last time you got to step back and be really done with something before starting the next thing – I guess I missed that opportunity. It was a lot to process all at one time, especially with so many things to try and get done in the meantime. It’s going to take me a while to figure out how I feel about all this, but I thought I should go ahead and let you know how things went.

It was a very meaningful (read: emotional) week, and also a very stressful and exhausting one, which exacerbated everything. My parents, aunt, and cousin came up to town for the graduation and commissioning. The morning of commissioning, we all sat down and met the AF general who was speaking, and even President Faust came in to wish us well (as sad as it is that only six people in our class are going into the military, and not the dozens of decades past, it does mean you get to meet more VIPs personally). Commissioning itself took place on a cloudy morning; I swore my oath, and my parents came up and put my Ensign shoulder-boards on. I received my first salute.

Afterwards, the reporter asked me how I felt, and I made something up and must have sounded rather strange, because I wasn’t actually feeling anything; I was too concerned with all the little things I had to remember, or had just forgotten or gotten wrong, and what I was doing next. It was the same way with graduation; between standing and sitting hours in the rain, and my never-ending internal philosophical debate over whether or not I agreed with the speakers (which will be the next post on my new blog), and the people chattering nonstop next to me, and my wet and bedraggled state in all my pictures with my diploma, my ‘moment’ just kept getting interrupted. I was afraid if I did start to feel, all it would be was frustration and stress. And to be honest, that’s what most of the week was: general stress bookended with uncontrollable crying when I arrived back in my room on Monday and when I walked into it for the last time on Friday. (Which should be taken with a grain of salt; I’ve already explained how I act when I’m very tired.)

But in the middle there, I did finally feel it, on the night between commissioning and graduation. I looked at my picture in uniform with my parents, and I suddenly realized that naval officer was me; I’ve come out on the other side. I used to think people magically became adults around the age of 21, and of course it’s much more long and painful than that, but that was a moment when I suddenly looked back and realized I was an adult. And I thought about how scared I’d been to come to college, and how simple everything back then was in retrospect.

And then there was something I suppose one could call epiphany. It was like memory, only looking forward. For a moment I could see, as clear as day, all the transition and confusion I was about to go through, as if I were looking back on it, and seeing that it was all really little things, after all. I have given up being a student, and I have gained a new identity as a Naval Officer, but in a way, those, too, are little things. There is something besides those, something deeper and more constant; there is my heart.

There is something that drives me, through all the transitions and changes and goodbyes and stress and tears and exhaustion, something that I love more than I hate all the rest. It isn’t fear; it isn’t a feeling of inadequacy. I don’t think it’s a feeling at all. It is, rather, a sort of need; as badly as my body needs water, my spirit needs purpose, needs to be always climbing, moving onward and upward, or I would tear myself apart.

Harvard has done a great deal for me; I have summed it up in my last few posts. But more than anything else, it is where I found my calling. I found out what it was that I needed so very badly. There are some yearnings that can only be satisfied in heaven, a great weariness that can’t find rest on this earth, where everything is always in flux. But this purpose, this great desire of my heart, is satisfied when I in the here and now pour myself into the purpose for which I was born. For the past four years, I have been solidifying my identity, reexamining and deepening my belief system, and finding where I stand. And now it is time to go out, to become a speaker of speeches and a doer of deeds, as Plutarch put it. The time for pondering is over; the time for action has come.*

And the action has already begun – again, check out my blog for more; I don’t mean to keep repeating myself, but this is my heart, so everything does lead back to it. I am beginning what I hope will be something beautiful, something that will last even while everything else changes. The night of commissioning, I googled ‘verses for sailors’ for my Bible study. Most of the lists were pretty lousy – “woe to ye, tarshish – your sailors will perish in the waves” – but Psalm 107 says God “will guide [us] to [our] desired haven,” which reminded me of another story about crossing the water – “let us go across to the other side.”

I can’t see my way across the water, but I’ve seen the view from the other side, and I’m headed over. (Drop by my new blog to check on my progress.) Home is behind, the world ahead, and I’m off on the adventure which Aslan will send me. Wish me luck, and best wishes!

Ensign Lauren Mandaville, Harvard ‘17

*To hear more, if you haven’t already, look at my new blog (click here), and also this explanatory post on this blog (click here).

Pictures: I'll upload my parents' pictures from graduation on facebook; they're too big of files to be uploaded here. Here are some behind-the-scenes from graduation morning, though:

There was a champagne breakfast with all the best parts of breakfast food at Pfoho:

 And then a procession to the yard (it's a 15-20 minute walk, remember) with bagpipes:

 And policemen to block the roads for us:

 Going into the chapel service:

 After chapel, waiting for the procession of the faculty, VIPs, etc.:

 My dorm room, all emptied out:

 My new quarters for the next couple weeks - I'm staying at a house owned by a church and run by Cru staff. (Only the pile of stuff on the floor is mine.)

But the house is just down the street, so I still walk down the same roads:

 Headed to the same church:

I've enjoyed sharing my life with all of you - a fond farewell, until we meet again!