Well actually, I did – I just didn’t have a proper graduation. As a lucky member of the class of 2020, I witnessed what would have been a celebratory, emotional event as a pre-recorded video from a monitor screen in my childhood bedroom.

It rained on the last day I ever stepped onto the grounds of Markville Secondary. It didn’t even take five minutes for me to grab my graduation package and step right back into my mom’s minivan. I didn’t even want to go, but my family somehow convinced me that I couldn’t just leave my high school diploma behind. But as I reached inside the brown paper bag to make sure that piece of paper was really in there, I found more than just that.

Inside, there was a cap and gown – the universal symbol of academic achievement. It was the symbol that might actually be able to justify those countless study sessions past midnight. But it was also the symbol that I would never be able to pair with my beautiful white lace babydoll dress as I walked down the stage in front of all my friends and family.

I know what you’re thinking: “Kim, there’s people that are dying.” And indeed, people were dying. With nearly 3,000 COVID hospitalizations in Canada during mid-May of 2020, a high school graduation was the least of everyone’s worries. That’s why I’m not here to complain about losing my “diamond earring.” In fact, I felt a sense of relief – despite the world outside crumbling apart, the weight of the world inside my mind had finally been lifted off my scrawny little shoulders.

I hated high school. It was boring, yet dramatic. Friendships were broken when my future maid-of-honour outgrew the present we had. Math exams were handed back with red pen scribbled all over when I just couldn’t bother to try anymore. And after finally accepting my offer to Ryerson University for Creative Industries, the first program of its kind within North America, I was ready to never look back.

So I didn’t try on my cap and gown. I didn’t hang it up. I didn’t even take it out of the clear, crinkly cellophane wrapping, as I placed the cobalt blue set back in the paper bag and into the depths of my itty-bitty closet. It sat there on the ground, never to be used – right underneath the satin skirt of my beautiful, emerald green prom dress that didn’t exist.

I scrolled through Instagram all summer, witnessing my classmates’ makeshift graduation ceremonies. My mom had asked me to take a few photos, but I couldn’t bring myself to cut open the protective wrapping in order to please her. Captioning an unauthentic photo with the words, “Goodbye Markville, it’s been a great four years!” would only be a lie. So instead, the cap and gown continued to call the bottom of my closet home.

It’s the kind of feeling that never really hits you at one specific moment. Instead, it could take days, weeks, or maybe even months until you finally have a chance to grasp the truth: that high school was over. That you can’t go back. That no matter how much it pained you to step into that building every day, there were a few good moments in there.

I wish it were different. I wish there came a time when I tried on the cap and gown and had a moment of realization. But I guess I just matured, and maturity doesn’t happen at one moment in time. And after a few months into my university education, I finally understood what the cap and gown could represent: that good experiences didn’t have to be overridden by a few bad ones. Sure, there were some terrible days, but that didn’t inherently cancel out all the amazing memories. And by taking those short-lived years for granted, I lost the chance to ever put on that cap and gown for a graduation ceremony.

But following the message of this personal essay, I guess I shouldn’t be too upset. There were a bunch of other pieces that I did get to wear.

What I did wear was the outdated, shiny basketball jersey that my coach swore he would replace with newer ones but never got around to doing so. Plastered with the number 13, Taylor Swift’s lucky number (so naturally, mine also), it represented the sweat-filled excitement as I stepped on the court each game.

What I did wear was the bright yellow plaid crop top and matching miniskirt to the school dance. I had designed and sewn the entire set from scratch – at $4 a meter for the structured yet soft flannel, how could I not pay homage to Cher Horowitz’s iconic movie look from 1995? It was a night free of worries and full of compliments.

What I did wear (more than I’d like to admit) was my favourite pair of thrifted Levi’s. It was the perfect pair of medium-washed denim to wear in last-period English as Sharon and I laughed at our teacher’s jokes that somehow made Shakespeare’s longest play, Hamlet, seem compelling.

So the cap and gown now hangs freely in my closet, zipped up all the way to prevent it from ever slipping off. And I guess I’ll always have my university graduation to put on a cap and gown because the pandemic won’t keep us trapped in the Zoom era forever – right?