Graduation

I graduated from my MA a fair few weeks ago and much like everything else in life the event itself wasn't nearly as much fun as the pre-event hype or the post-event celebrations - I took a few days off work and we all went to the pub, some of us went to the theatre and a couple of us even went to a castle.
All in all it was pretty momentous, the MA has taken over more than 2 years of my life, it is certainly the end of an era but the start of... well, I'm not sure what.
Was I pleased about what we'd all achieved? Sure.
Was I relieved to be out of the debt and stress of studying? Definately!
Do I feel like it's made a difference to my life? Sort of...
On one hand it has been amazing, I think differently about writing, about drama, about language and character, about life, love and everything in between.
I talk about it differently too, it's not a faraway dream or a dirty secret it's what I spend my time doing and inevitably talking about.
Friends and family are really supportive too - they ask about my work even when they don't understand anything about it and it means so much when they do; when they care about it for no other reason than simply because I do.
Yet on the other hand there's a nagging doubt that I am - much like when I graduated from my BA - overqualified and under experienced and it's getting harder to fight my way out from under this blanket of inexperience.
Much like the state of the current economy there are more of us under here struggling than there were before. And there are, as you get older, fewer opportunities to take risks, to be brave and to throw caution to the wind...
Yet I feel like that is exactly what I need to do.
Clearly I didn't miss the lecture on dramatic irony!
I explained my situation to a friend the other day and in a rather more rambling version than this I said that being a new writer is like trying to get into the hippest party in town.
I feel like this MA has given me the key that opens the back stage door to the party, but I can fling the key into the lock as much as I want - I still can't get access to the party till someone invites me in.
Maybe I will get in one day, maybe I won't.
But for now I have the key and that's good enough.
It might not be an open invitation to my future but it's sure as hell better than nothing. And that's certainly worth celebrating...
So...anyone for the pub?