Graduation Without the Gown: Quietly Celebrating Milestones in Your Own Way

Today I graduated.

The weather didn’t make a scene about it. No grand speech, no band playing. I didn’t put on a cap and gown. I didn’t walk across a stage or pose for pictures with extended family. None of that happened. I was at home. I went to the mall, bought some chocolates, and then came back. That was it.

But that’s not the whole story. The truth is, I forgot today was my graduation day.

It wasn’t until I saw my neighbor walking her dog in full cap and gown that it hit me. She waved and smiled and I congratulated her without a second thought. Then, like a breeze sneaking in through a crack in the window, it landed: this was my day, too.

There’s no dramatic reason why I didn’t go. I didn’t register for the ceremony. I didn’t order the cap and gown. But underneath that, there’s more to say. Someone important to me isn’t here anymore, my mentor, someone who saw me through the pages and chapters that led to this one. She would have been here. If anyone deserved to watch me cross that stage, it was her. And without her, it just didn’t feel like something I wanted to share with a crowd.

Who Gets to Witness the Win?

I did ask my teenager if they cared whether I went. I would have done it for them. But they shrugged in that way people do when they mean well and don’t want to make a big deal out of things. They said they didn’t care, and it wasn’t cold. It was a quiet kind of support, the kind you carry with you in the back pocket of your day.

A teacher of mine said they’d be at the ceremony, and that was kind. But it wasn’t the same. I’d just met her. It was our first quarter together. She doesn’t know my history. My mentor does. My mentor was there from the beginning, and long before that, really. She wasn’t school-affiliated. She was life-affiliated.

So I stayed home.

Defining Celebration on My Own Terms

I told myself maybe I’d celebrate in a different way. Maybe I’d buy a share of stock in a company I really believe in, something that would mean something down the line, something with staying power. My teenager thought that was a great idea. And I thought, yeah. That would make me happy.

I already bought my diploma frame a while back. Seventy bucks, custom, from the college. It’s not waiting anymore, it’s sitting in its frame, in the box, on the shelf beneath the coffee table.

There’s a quiet strangeness in reaching a milestone with no witnesses, or at least none that really matter. It’s not that I needed the applause. But part of me wanted the recognition, not from strangers, but from the ones who really knew the story behind the achievement. The ones who saw the rewrites and the rough drafts.

My teenager and I went to the mall and bought chocolates. We tried something new for the first time, Charlie’s, known for cheesesteaks and wings. We ordered a ten-piece wing set, half lemon pepper rub, half bold barbecue sauce, with two zero-sugar Cokes. We also picked up our favorite See’s Candy, hazelnut chocolate called Summertime.

When I was 30, I bought my first share of Warren Buffett’s company. Since then, it’s kind of become a family tradition to buy the Summertime chocolates every year. Sometimes we skip it, but for the most part, we keep it going. It feels fitting, especially since I just went to the library yesterday, my first real chance to read again after finishing my first quarter at UW, and checked out The Warren Buffett Way (third edition) by Robert G. Hagstrom. It’s good so far.

And there’s this instructor I’ve been thinking about lately. She’s away right now. Out of town. Hopefully healing. Hopefully reflecting. I don’t know if we’ll talk when she’s back, but part of me hopes we will. She once said something that stuck with me: “When you go through something, who do you call? Because the person I used to call, I lost.”

I get that. I feel that.

And maybe when she returns, we’ll both have some things to share. Or maybe not. Maybe we’ll just sit in the same room and understand, without saying too much.

But here’s what I know:

This day happened. It counts. Even if it didn’t look like everyone else’s version.

Some people treat graduation like a final scene, confetti, applause, and a camera roll that eventually stops recording. But I think it’s more like laying a cornerstone. It’s not the end of anything. It’s the beginning of something foundational. I don’t want this to just be a moment in time. I want it to be part of what I’m building.

Not just a degree for a better paycheck or a line on a resume. I want it to shape the way I move forward, the kind of life I design, the kind of peace I protect, the kind of values I live by. That’s the difference. Not just a finish line, but a foundation I’ll keep building on, long after the moment’s passed

We spend so much time preparing for the big finish that we forget life is built in the in-between. In the mall chocolates. In the decision not to go. In the silence. In the memories that show up uninvited and take a seat next to us.

So if you didn’t walk either, if you skipped your own ceremony for reasons only you understand, this is for you too.

You did it. You made it.

And it counts.

Congratulations.