And so it goes
The Great Minnesota Get Together--otherwise known as the MN State Fair--began today. And if you remember back to my post from last August, you'll remember what that means:
My summer is over.
As I watch the local news stations offering tips for cheap state fair parking and the newest deep fried foods on a stick, in my head, all I hear is a slow, sad funeral march.
Goodbye summer, old friend. I hardly knew ye.
College students poured back into town last weekend, a cool breeze is wafting in my window, and my beloved MN Vikings have once again traded many of our rising stars in favor of an aging quarterback and promptly bumbled their preseason game. Fall is officially here.
As always, I feel a little melancholy with the ending of the summer. For someone who has always measured life in terms of school years rather than calendar years, the end of August always forces me to look backwards at another year gone. And looking back this year, it is difficult to put into words what I see.
The past year lays out behind me like a map; I see the places I have been and the places will I go, and I feel a soft sort of ambivalence. Perhaps this is the way of growing up. Life is no longer measured in milestones--graduation, marriages, first jobs. At 27, I've simply got on with the business of passing years. This is not to say the years are unimportant--or even unexciting--rather that they have inevitably taken on a certain shape that will be repeated far into the future. And that shape lends to a certain amount of predictability. For someone who doesn't like change, there is comfort in that. For someone who also detests the idea of being a real-life adult, there is a gentle let down there, as well.
Perhaps my ambivalence is a result of the year I have had, as well. Professionally, despite some high points (taking a student to the state tournament, receiving tenure), it was a tough year. I learned that some people never grow out of the mean-girl attitude and there's just no working with others. I learned that some years I'm a better teacher than others. I learned that--no matter how I feel about the previous year--a new crop of students will arrive in the fall; I will grow older, but those students filling my room will always be 15. I learned that they will graduate and move on to amazing things--things I may or may not know about, but that I would be proud of nonetheless. I learned that that's the beauty and sorrow of teaching.
So perhaps the most I can hope for is that the new year will, in fact, bring hope. I hope I will rediscover my energy Monday, when teacher workshops begin. I hope I can enter a new year without carrying the frustrations of the past with me. I hope I can get more sleep.
Another lesson of growing up has settled in on me this week: no matter how fervently we wish to stop the march of the years, we are always creating our past in each moment that we live.
So, as the Minnesota state fair says to me each penultimate week in August, "Ready or not, here I come."
My summer is over.
As I watch the local news stations offering tips for cheap state fair parking and the newest deep fried foods on a stick, in my head, all I hear is a slow, sad funeral march.
Goodbye summer, old friend. I hardly knew ye.
College students poured back into town last weekend, a cool breeze is wafting in my window, and my beloved MN Vikings have once again traded many of our rising stars in favor of an aging quarterback and promptly bumbled their preseason game. Fall is officially here.
As always, I feel a little melancholy with the ending of the summer. For someone who has always measured life in terms of school years rather than calendar years, the end of August always forces me to look backwards at another year gone. And looking back this year, it is difficult to put into words what I see.
The past year lays out behind me like a map; I see the places I have been and the places will I go, and I feel a soft sort of ambivalence. Perhaps this is the way of growing up. Life is no longer measured in milestones--graduation, marriages, first jobs. At 27, I've simply got on with the business of passing years. This is not to say the years are unimportant--or even unexciting--rather that they have inevitably taken on a certain shape that will be repeated far into the future. And that shape lends to a certain amount of predictability. For someone who doesn't like change, there is comfort in that. For someone who also detests the idea of being a real-life adult, there is a gentle let down there, as well.
Perhaps my ambivalence is a result of the year I have had, as well. Professionally, despite some high points (taking a student to the state tournament, receiving tenure), it was a tough year. I learned that some people never grow out of the mean-girl attitude and there's just no working with others. I learned that some years I'm a better teacher than others. I learned that--no matter how I feel about the previous year--a new crop of students will arrive in the fall; I will grow older, but those students filling my room will always be 15. I learned that they will graduate and move on to amazing things--things I may or may not know about, but that I would be proud of nonetheless. I learned that that's the beauty and sorrow of teaching.
So perhaps the most I can hope for is that the new year will, in fact, bring hope. I hope I will rediscover my energy Monday, when teacher workshops begin. I hope I can enter a new year without carrying the frustrations of the past with me. I hope I can get more sleep.
Another lesson of growing up has settled in on me this week: no matter how fervently we wish to stop the march of the years, we are always creating our past in each moment that we live.
So, as the Minnesota state fair says to me each penultimate week in August, "Ready or not, here I come."
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