Don’t Look Back
Originally published in August 2012.
Today, all over the United States, students are starting and returning to school. This has actually been happening for a few weeks already, but today is significant to me as my daughter started today. She’s in first grade and attending a new school, her fourth in four years. Why is this her fourth school? One word – fit. I preach “fit” with my students like a charismatic televangelist, which is to say with serious passion and conviction. So it stands to reason that I’d accept no less for my own child. But I’m here to tell you, it’s a wee bit trickier when the student is 3, 4, 5 and 6, rather than 17 or 18. Because at 3 we had only the faintest idea of how my daughter learned best, or what types of peers would comprise her friends or what her preferences were. At 6, and after some educational testing, we have a much better sense of her needs and gifts, thank goodness.
Her new school is a 30 minute drive from our home so we set off and as we got close, I asked her if she’d like me to walk her in. She said yes, “Because sometimes I’m shy at first.” And I was pleased, because we all like to feel needed. We pulled into a parking spot and a teacher approached our car and asked me to move, as I had unwittingly parked in the drop off area, which would be dangerous. (Whoops!) I began to turn the car to drive to the other lot and all of a sudden my daughter said, “Never mind, Mama, you can just drop me off.” I asked if she was sure and she reiterated that she was fine. I pulled up, and a teacher asked if she knew where her room was. She said no, so the teacher enlisted the aid of an 8th grader to walk her to class. Without a backward glance, she strode off, into a building she had seen exactly once before. And I swallowed very hard, pulled my sunglasses down, and drove away.
What flashed through my head as I drove was the memory of when I left home for college. I had only considered schools that were quite a distance from my hometown, so in August of my freshman year, my parents and I had a full day’s drive to my university. I cried a bit during that drive; because there was a boy I thought I’d really miss. (In case you’re wondering, I broke up with him over the phone less than a week later.) But there was no question that I was excited. I’d lived my entire life in a small rural community and I was going to an urban university that recruited students from all 50 states and over 100 foreign countries.
Once on campus, there were nerves of course. Would I love it as much as I’d loved my visits? Would I fit in? How would I manage sharing a room for the first time? My parents and I unloaded their minivan and we made my bed, hung my clothes and plugged in my answering machine. (Yes, I’m that old.) Soon I heard music coming from down the hall. I told my folks I’d be back in a minute and left to investigate. The song was from my favorite artist, Billy Joel. But it was from his first solo album, Cold Spring Harbor, an album only a true fan would know.
And so it began. Kelly was my first connection at college, the first confirmation that I’d made the right choice. I went on to find my people, including the man I married 16 years later, (though that’s a story for another blog post) and many friends who joined us on campus where we said our vows. This morning, I sent a link to photos of my daughter’s first day to one of my college roommates, who lives in England. My life has been powerfully enriched in so many ways by my undergraduate alma mater that I have neither the words nor the space to encompass it all here.
So it will be for you. Give yourself the time and the space and the resources to learn – about who you are, about what you want for your future and about the colleges and universities in your country and around the world that can help you become the person you’ve always dreamed you could become. When you do that, I promise – you won’t need to look back either.
