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Imagine! It's the mid-80s in your graduating from college. It's a sunny day.

The first in a while. The rolling lawns of your university seem greener than normal.

Maybe it's because your parents are here and you're seeing everything through their eyes.

They're so proud of you.

The girls are all in form-fitting black cocktail dresses. The guys in dark suits and skinny ties.

With trendy asymmetrical haircuts.

A classmate asks you to take a photo of him and some friends before the ceremony.

Get together, you guys. How do we look?

Like a poor man's durand-oran.

You can make jokes because you're not nervous.

It's almost as if this whole day is happening to someone else.

You should be on the top of the world.

After years of committed study, a 3,000-word dissertation in French, a semester abroad in Paris,

and lots of tests that you haste without having to study too much.

You're graduating.

But something just feels...off.

Underwhelming.

False.

Like your heart's not in it.

Thomas Johnson.

Amanda Jones.

...