Graduation and Comfort- May 18 and 21, 2003

Sunday, May 18, 2003, was graduation day, all day, and officially I became Dr. Mary Elizabeth Gulla. WOW. Now that is out of my system, I will be honest with you and say that I feel like the Dr. part before my name will mostly remain a secret that I will keep the rest of my life. It is enough that the Board of Pharmacy in North Carolina and South Carolina and I know it is there. Maybe another day I can get into all the extra baggage the Dr. part brings, and I already carry too many bags as it is. Anway, the weather was miserable with both light and heavy rains, and it was cold which I should have checked on before I wore my brand-new white linen pants from Express. Bill Cosby spoke at graduation, and he showed up in a sweatsuit with socks and Birkenstocks on. He walked past our crew all lined up and quickly greeted us without stopping. I have to say as someone who watched The Cosby Show growing up, it was shocking to be in his presence but even more shocking was seeing him dressed this way. Maybe he is on to something and if you are this comfortable all the time life is just automatically better because you feel better? Who is looking at your shoes if you are making them think and laugh? I don’t know why his outfit threw me so much, but it did. Maybe it is because I equate celebrity with being dressed up? Maybe it is because I have never even seen my own parents dress that casually? My parents don’t own sweat suits and even if they did, they would never leave the house dressed in one.

My parents get dressed for the day complete with jewelry and shoes on and that is how they stay until it’s time to hit the pillow. This is also how they always dressed me and my sisters. If you look at pictures of me when I am as young as five or six my hair is in a perfect braid, I am fully accessorized with plastic bracelets and necklaces, and some of my outfits even included my mom’s scarves around my neck. We have this photo of my sisters and I in matching dresses, hair curled and perfect, plus accessories, and someone asked how long it took us to get ready for the photo and my mom dismissed the question by saying it was Sunday, implying that we were obviously already dressed this way for church. Apparently, we just happened to go to JCPenny after church and got pictures taken because there was a special. Anyway, sorry I am still stuck on his outfit, so it was a big day for us, graduation and all, but I guess when you are Bill Cosby it was just another day for you and no need to dress up for it because you are a male celebrity which means you can wear and do what you want and maybe that is what he wanted us to know that day. In the end, it really didn’t matter because before he spoke, he threw on a gown, but we knew.

I sent Peter a handwritten note on the fanciest flower embedded paper I owned (a gift from my mother that had been deemed too fancy to use for any other correspondance) inviting him to come to my graduation. In my note, I reminded him that I never would have graduated without his nightly phone calls making sure I had done everything I needed to do that day (it was not a one-way street, and I also had held him accountable for his own daily lists). It worked. Peter showed up for my graduation, and it was wonderful to see him, and he continues his streak of never ever letting me down. Every time I talk to him, I feel so lucky he is in my life. In addition to Peter, Aunt Pat, Aunt Elaine and Uncle John my mother’s sisters and brother all came into town. Uncle Ray who is married to Aunt Elaine and Aunt Polly who is married to Uncle John were there too. I am not sure what exactly why it happened, but my entire family ended up leaving me at the graduation. I was going around looking for them and seeing everyone’s parents and wanting so badly to introduce mine, but I never could find them, and finally I called the house, and they picked up. I thought they were all there to support me, but I should have known better. I spent the rest of the night in my room sitting on the bed talking with Peter. My mother brought a glass of white wine to the bedroom which is something she would never do under normal circumstances and I know she was trying to make up for leaving me but that is what she drinks, I hate white wine. So, it just made me angrier, and Peter just laughed and laughed and tried to make the whole thing lighter. What a gift.

We moved to North Carolina from Philadelphia when I started high school and nothing about that transition was easy or smooth for anyone in my family and now ten years later life somehow became pretty perfect or at least way better than I could have ever imagined, and now I am leaving. I don’t want to leave Peter or Sean or my other friends, but it is onward and upward to Eckerd and Folly Beach, South Carolina. Sailash said that you have to leave and go somewhere new after school, at least for a little bit, and if you hate it, you can just move back, and Sailash is never wrong. He is one of the pharmacists I worked with at Eckerd while I was in pharmacy school and maybe it is his British accent or the fact that he always has a tie on, but I trust what he shares with me. He also wears cologne, a lot of cologne. So much cologne that when we work together and have to share phones all day, I smell like him at the of my shift. The cologne plays a part in me trusting him too because when I am around my extended family, I can smell all the cologne, and it makes me feel safe. It feels like nothing bad can happen to me when all I can smell is this old man cologne. So, when Sailash takes the time to tell me something, I don’t just listen to him, I do it.

I guess it is best to leave on a high note. But it is hard, I am wearing Sean’s sweatshirt. It is olive green, the color of pharmacy apparently. Allegedly, the olive green is a subtle nod to the dried herbs, roots, and plants historically used to compound medicines in ancient apothecary practices. It is warm and very comfortable which is exactly how he makes me feel. Is the fact that his sweatshirt, out of all the possible colors, is olive-green, a sign?

The other morning, I was awakened by the former preceptor calling me and I feel confident that he is someone I need to remain friends with but nothing more. Sorry, I am really not confident about this at all, I just wanted to try out that sentence. All I really know is that I want to be around Sean all the time but maybe that is because he is safe. Why does Sean feel so safe when other guys have not? Maybe it is just that I want his company? I guess I will find out when I tell him how I feel. If I tell him. I don’t want to ruin our friendship, but we all know that has not stopped me in the past. I need comfort and would appreciate it in the form of Sean.