Commencement tomorrow marks the close of my first full year of working at the university. The last several months have been the busiest I’ve experienced since starting there. And as a natural consequence, I feel like my personal life has been put on hold.

One welcome release I have found during this time has been reading for pleasure (not for purpose, as is normally the case). A dear student and friend of mine introduced me to a few books that she enjoyed and I just finished the second one.

Who knew reading could be so healthy? I just had myself a good cry and my eyes are sufficiently puffy and swollen for attending the graduation ceremony tomorrow. Not fantastic timing but I wouldn’t take it back. Lord, there’s something so cathartic about a good cry.

I don’t care to rehash the storyline here. Suffice it to say the book and the emotions that followed reawakened a deep heartfelt desire of mine– that of becoming a wife and a mother.

What’s interesting is that it’s a desire that I speak of often and openly. It’s not a dream that I have repressed but one that I own without hesitation. So it’s curious that it touched me so deeply tonight.

But that’s the beauty of art– whether it’s a written piece, visual art, or spoken word. It has the ability to tap into areas that are often inaccessible in everyday life. And I regard the tears that sometimes follow these encounters as a great gift.

It’s experiences like the one tonight that remind me I’m alive and that the desire and the dream I hold in my heart is deep and real and full. And somehow the reminder of its depth acts as an assurance of its future existence. The desire itself becomes the promise.