Senioritis really kicks in for everyone. Let’s be honest. Teachers, fourth graders, administrators, they all are touched by it. It’s really more like summeritis. Today is my last full day of class and I couldn’t be more excited. Actually, I was probably more excited for summer about two weeks ago when my seniors started getting antsy and maybe a little big for their britches.
I get it, though. Senioritis should be considered a natural part of life. Graduating high school seems like, and probably is, the proudest moment in everyone’s life up until then.
I attended graduation on Sunday to watch my step brother graduate and it brought me back. No, not to reminiscing about the day (honestly I hardly remember it) but it reminded me of how much I have grown since then.
Like most seniors I thought I knew it all. I was queen of the world and heading off to college where I was bound to become something even greater (if that was even possible). And I have, but certainly not the way I thought. I remember thinking at that time that I would become more definable over the next four years. For some reason that’s what I wanted. I pictured my blurred but bright future to become more clear. I knew almost everything but college would fill in all the gaps.
More than anything I have learned to become less defined. When I have to fill out a survey that asks my occupation I don’t even know how to narrow it down. Yes, I want to figure that out someday but I still hope that won’t be how I define myself. I hope I, and those seniors too, never forget that there will always be “gaps” and you won’t ever know everything but who would want to anyway? Once you know everything what else is there to discover?
So Sunday and throughout the senior week that preceded I watched their excitement and nostalgia build. It was fun for me to be happy for them in this big moment in their lives. Not long ago I would have wanted to be Miss Realist and warn them of the future. I would have been the person to tell them not to get too excited. But in the nine years since high school I have become a bit more optimistic and less the bearer of real news. It’s been a slow process but even these students have shown me how to live in the moment. You can’t truly appreciate something if you are always looking past it; always looking to what’s next. Stop and smell the roses, enjoy today for what it is, what it’s giving you, and how it might even be changing you. Because, still a realist, today really IS all we have.
