I got my degree this week. Honestly it’s been the hardest three years of my life for a lot of reasons (5 if you count the two years before I transferred course), and I’m proud; really, really proud of myself. There’s just one small snag. Fucking pictures.

For anyone, making sure you look your best for the immortalising snaps is hard. It’s a lot of stress looking good. And I did look good. In a suit and tie. I hated it.

Theres just the thought running in my mind that I’m going to be forever on my mum’s wall looking like this; it’s the mirror every morning but for the rest of my life.

Look, I know no one graduates for the photo; you don’t get married for the cake and no one goes to Amsterdam for the airport, but it just sucks. I’d love to be able to look back on graduation for what it was; the day that all my effort culminated to, but it’s going to be forever tainted by the feeling of wearing someone else’s skin. The boy in those pictures are not me.

I mean, who knows, I’ll probably do my masters in a few years, so I’ll have a great timeline photo. Silver linings and all that. I can swap those photos out (why have an undergrad pic when you have a master’s ammirite?). But for now it just sucks. I’ll share a photo that I took the day after, one that feels more like me.

If anything, this feeling just cements my thinking that I’m doing the right thing for me. Having your photo taken shouldn’t be a point of depression. It should be a celebration. Heres to the next one being just that.

Anonomized somewhat, not out to everyone