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Commencing
Tonight was the senior class dinner. I tell you, there's nothing like a beautiful (wonderful, amazing) slide show with "goodbye music" to make you realize how much you like a group of kids. They are a pretty special collection of individuals, and I wish them the best in the lives opening before them.
Tomorrow is graduation, and a week after that we will be moving out of our apartment and leaving Providence. I really have a sense that my time here was too short. Not just the days that are left are too short, but the years. Not just in the city, though it's a city I'd be happy to live in a while yet, but especially at the school. I want to see if our JV tennis team could manage a 3rd consecutive undefeated season, if our varsity can finally close the deal and win the state championship they've been so close to the past three years (and, of course, I want to help in both of those pursuits, and I want to see our players grow as players); I want to see how the juniors I taught American literature to (actually, "with" seems like the better word choice) do as seniors, I want to see how my sophomores grow as juniors and then take their own place as wise old seniors. I started a Games Club this year and had a great young core of kids, and I won't get to help nourish the love of obscure board games in them and future students here. I won't get the chance to get to know some of the great kids I've seen around school or heard other teachers talking about but hadn't gotten to know personally. I've been fortunate to have incredible colleagues in the English department, from whom I've learned a great deal and with whom I've enjoyed my time. The school hired a great new Upper School Head at the beginning of the year, and I'm sorry that I won't get to see her develop into an even better administrator and work under her. Outside of school, I've been privileged to work with a couple great choral ensembles for the past two years, and I will miss performing and socializing with them.
However, even with all these regrets, I still think we're making the right choice. That knowledge makes it a little easier, and I suppose in the balance it's better to leave a job this way--loving it and wishing I were staying--than to be saying "good riddance" on the way out (or worse yet, being chased off the premises!). No, it's better to on a positive note--much as I left the school to which I'll be returning--than the alternatives, even if it means living with some regrets. Before long, I'm sure, it won't be the regrets I'll dwell on: it will be all the fond memories. And, I should hope, I will be able to keep alive some of the relationships I've formed here over the past two years.
In some ways, I suppose, it's the nature of schools anyway. As tomorrow's commencement reminds me, it's natural to move on from school. A quarter of a high school's population does it every year and lives to tell the tale. Sometimes they lose touch, sometimes they don't, but in pretty much every case they've had an important experience in their time there, grown in some ways, and take those things with them where ever they go, just as tomorrow's graduates will, just as I will.
When you're as old as I am, you'll have said many good-byes to people,
places, jobs. It enriches and enlivens your life to be able to look back
and say, that was a person I love(d), or that was a job well done or what a
great time we had. Not sad, maybe a bit nostalgic--even for the one time
when I was asked/told to leave (back in my 20's for trying to unionize the
waitresses where I worked). Without the good-byes there would have been no
new adventures, so it all works out. Best of luck to you and may all your
changes be great adventures!