Life is hard and then you graduate

My son graduated from third grade recently.

The year ended with successes unexpected in scale. We figured he passed Florida's standardized tests (the FCATs), but on the last day of school we learned he scored in the 99th percentile for the country.

We expected good grades (he's been getting As and Bs all year), but were surprised when his teacher -- who had limited her comments to a sentence or two in previous grading periods -- wrote a warm and positive paragraph praising him.

And we knew he'd won the yearlong checkers tournament in his gifted class, but the trophy he brought home with his name engraved was unexpectedly huge and heavy.

This was all critically important because the few weeks before the school year ended were disappointing and frustrating for Colter. He was pushed and kneed by one boy and teased by some girls. He was just starting to feel really different and wrong when he and his peers were given cause to celebrate his talents, instead.

So as summer began, we thought we were in for better times. We reminded him that he'd have a different teacher next year, a different class, different challenges. We reminded him he'd meet new kids at camp. And then he did.

Some of them were immediate friends. Others were really mean.

This turning point reminded me that just when you think the hard part is over, it really begins.

I graduated from high school on my 18th birthday, full of promise and sure that surviving my childhood and adolescence had been the most difficult part, with all that was easy ahead of me.

I was an adult now, I thought, and in college, I would have more freedom, more money, more choices.

Ha.

In college, I had more responsibilities, more debt and too many choices. But I also had more fun.

Someone once told me that you could either enjoy high school or college, not both. It turns out I was the collegiate type.

My four years of college were spent learning, growing, changing, and rarely sitting still long enough to fantasize what would follow, "If only…"

I had no sense that life would be better when X happened. X had happened. I had left home and was charging forward with my destiny.

We often think happiness requires having what we want. In fact, happiness is wanting what we have. And I wanted everything I had: strong female friends, a challenging education and work that was satisfying.

I was a big fish in a big pond.

It wasn't until graduate school -- when I overstayed my welcome in the academic world -- that I realized no matter the size of the fish or the pond, it's always possible to get lost or gobbled up.

Eventually, life is hard for most fishes in most ponds.

It's easy to look toward milestones hopefully. Once I'm in high school … in college … in "the real world" … life will be different.

And yet, life is always different, and it's always the same.

We never really start over, and we start over every day.

Kids are cruel, then adults are. Exams are difficult, then promotions are. Allowances are too small, then salaries are.

Happiness finds us in the gradual moments, the gradations, rather than the graduations. Life is in the details, the moments that seem unimportant, the seeds of today and tomorrow that were planted yesterday.

As I was writing this, I found my high school yearbook and re-discovered my favorite "quip" (quotes and bits that friends believed capture me). It was: "Mz. Editrix." At the time I was managing editor of my high school newspaper. I wore the title well. Today, I am managing editor of a different publication, and no job description fits better than the one I was given over 20 years ago.

In my college yearbook, next to my picture, appears this quote by Thoreau: "We are constantly invited to be what we are." I still believe that.

Every day is a graduation, ready to tell us what we've learned and send us on our way. At my college graduation, the school's president gave a speech I will never forget. She said, "Money and power will never ever love you back." I have always remembered that line.

It takes me here: In a school or outside of one, whatever size the pond or the fish, you just have to keep swimming.

A version of this LifeFiles column originally appeared on about 70 TV station websites managed by Internet Broadcasting Systems.

Comments

[Melany]

Congratulations to your son! What you wrote here is SO true...so very true

[cassie-b]

Congratulations to your son. I hope he has a good year next year. And a good summer as well.

Cas

[Kristi]

Kids can be sooo mean, and no matter how many times you try to turn the other cheek, it still hurts.

Graduation brings about so many emotions. Happy at what they've accomplished; sad that they're moving on (to whatever the next stage is); excitement about their broadening horizons and terror because question whether we've given them all the tools they need to be successful at the next level.

With Austin having just graduated highschool, I'm trying very hard to focus on the "excitement" and to trust that I taught him all I could about being a strong, compassionate, resourceful human being who tries to impact the world in a positive manner. Our motto: Always leave a person or situation stronger, or in a better position, than when you encountered them.

[kat]

A Checker's trophy?!?!?! I want one!

[Regina Walker]

Wow, I can relate. My oldest son is also graduating from 3rd grade.