You'll Go Places
blooming by the creek
It's graduation season, apparently, and I've been remembering middle school graduation ceremonies from my teaching days. The usual piles of backpacks, notebooks, and sneakers were cleared away from the porch-turned-stage to make way for a wooden podium, white chairs, and an arbor adorned with fresh flowers. A bevy of girls appeared in pretty pastel dresses, and the boys were suddenly spiffy in jackets and ties, folded notes for their speeches tucked into pockets.
When I was a kid, junior high consisted of 7th, 8th, and 9th grades; promotion from one grade to another was an unheralded expectation, but in this little private school, the occasion was momentous.
Sometimes the remarks of the graduates went on too long, and it was hot sitting on the bench in the sun, but there was something charming and touching about the whole business, and we adults endured, a doting audience beaming from the sidelines. I remember one young man in particular who leaned forward casually from the podium and went on and on in a veritable monolog, inserting a wisecrack here and there, and thanking pretty much everyone in his life by name, as though he'd just received an Oscar. Then he took a bow and stepped into his future with great confidence.
“You’ll go places,” I told him afterwards.
“So will you,” he responded.
And by and large, I suppose we have, although sometimes when I glimpse the journeys and accomplishments of the young people I know, it is with a vague sense of wistfulness and envy.
Yesterday a former student, now in her late 20s, came to visit, bearing news of fellowships, publications, idealistic ambitions and astonishing world travel. This one is off-the-scale remarkable, but I do stalk quite a few of the kids on Facebook, and they always seem to be racking up advanced degrees, making music or acquiring languages, engaged in philanthropic work and spending time in parts of the world I can only imagine.
As for me, last week's mail included a catalog for comfort shoes, retirement information, and a discount on cremation services...no wonder I've been feeling sort of past tense.Let me make it clear: I am happy for those kids and proud of them. I love to imagine I've had some small and hopefully positive role in their lives, and I genuinely believe my own life is enlarged by that connection.
The greatest gift of having been a teacher is the ongoing friendship with the few who continue to check in, and the best outcome of having been a parent is to see one's adult child well on her path and being happy. In both these ways, I have been blessed.
But we finally just have to accept the fixed framework of our own personal history and the narrowing doorway of future prospects, and get out of the way gracefully. As I always say, there's nothing so easy to become (or so very unappealing) as bitter. So I celebrate the young and the places they are going. I'll encourage and support, beaming from the sidelines.
And I love my life.
But there are still a few things I want to do, and I intend to do 'em. It's essential to keep on learning, striving, growing, experiencing. I missed a lot of boats, it's true, but I may still grab a stray star and surprise myself.