As I donned my black robe and strode down Rue de Rivoli with my friend Brooke, it didn’t seem quite real. Graduation and the realization that I had completed a Master of Arts were both staring me in the face as I waited in the shadow of Paris’ famous Théâtre du Châtelet for the ceremony to begin. And when I marched into the glimmering and stifling room (the very one where the César Awards – the French equivalent to the Oscars – is held) to the sound of Pomp and Circumstance and the cheering of my family, my American and French worlds collided in a crescendo.

And seated next to my dear friend, Brooke, who had walked every step of graduate school (and very nearly ever step of Paris) with me, I watched my life slide from student to once again graduate and on into the blank future beyond. I don’t think I can say how happy it made me to look up and see my family seated above, watching the same ceremony that I was. After so many days and months of wishing I could show them what in a certain moment I was seeing, they were here with me. We got to finish this together.

And following our stage crossings, we chased each other down through a crowd of  post-ceremony champagne toasts to snap a few photos and catch the metro for a late lunch at cool, unpretentious Septime.

Three hours later when we stepped back out into the dappled light of a perfect Parisian spring afternoon, I was more certain than ever that my two worlds had collided. And in their crashing wake, I realized somewhere along the way, I had become a new metamorphosis of the two.