Thursday, June 23, 2016

Graduation Daydream


This is the 9th annual graduation daydream. (I just counted.) It all started with me dozing off in a special ed class on the last day of school. And, so now every year since, I like to repost this as a way to mark the end of one school year and the beginning of summer.

It starts with a stage filled with teens in caps and gowns. A graduation ceremony. The new graduates look over the audience filled with proud parents. They're excited. They've finally finished school, and they're looking forward to the next phase of their lives.

The new graduates exit at the side of the stage. They hug each other. Many are in tears. They meet up with parents, take pictures, and gradually leave the area.

The stage is empty, but not for long.

Off to the other side of the stage is another group of students a year younger than those who just exited. They climb the stairs and claim the stage for themselves.

The new senior class surveys its domain. Some look in corners. Others go to the edge of the stage and peer out at the audience. Many are cheering, fist pumping, and bouncing up and down. Two boys run at each other and bump chests. They have arrived.

While the new senior class celebrates, the area just off the stage that was just vacated starts to fill. This group looks around in awe and wonder. A few look up the steps, itching to join the new seniors. Several look out over the line that stretches out behind them. It's a long line and it seems to disappear into the horizon.

As each group moves up to the next position, they look over their new surroundings. The new freshman class, however, is so busy celebrating and laughing at the group just below them that they don't notice how trashed their new position is. Then again, their old spot in the line wasn't much better.

The newest middle schoolers carefully take up their new position. They are all wide-eyed wonder. The more adventurous pull their peers along. They take their time looking around, acclimating to their new position in line. There's a demarcation behind them, and they thought they'd never get beyond that border. Now that they are, they're not sure what they're going to do next.

Each elementary grade moves up one. As the former kindergartners take their first grade spot (and make themselves right at home), an empty spot is left at the end of the line. But like all the other spots in line, this one doesn't remain empty for long.

Off in the distance, family groups start to arrive. The parents push their little ones into their spot in line. Some of these children run to take over their spot. Others cling. The families stand there, watching their little ones for some time, not sure what to do next.

One mother shakes her head as she watches her little one acclimate to the line. "They grow up so fast," she says.

Nearby, various people are on their way out of the area. One woman hears the kindergartner's mother, so she turns to her and says, "You have no idea." The woman looks off into the distance where her graduate is off with friends.

"You have no idea," the woman repeats.

19 comments:

  1. It is so true, they grow up so fast and that's about how it goes with the school years moving up in their "ranks."

    betty

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  2. I love this! So poignant and so true! I've definitely been feeling this lately with one child entering high school and one entering middle school in the fall.

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    1. Thanks. It's one of my favorite posts, so I repost it every year.

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  3. lol you do always hear that children grow up so fast :)

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  4. I took my mother in law (somewhat new to this area) past where my grown son went to high school. It's been years. But, in some ways, I can still remember him in nursery school. A strange feeling, and I enjoyed reading this dream. It has a lot of layers of meanings. A good one. Alana ramblinwitham.blogspot.com

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    1. It's one of my better posts. Glad you liked it.

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  5. Everything almost goes in a circle...I just went to a state graduation for our weight lost group.
    Guess we all move up the latter
    Coffee is on

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  6. That presents a great picture of growing up and moving up. Time really does fly! I think back to the times when I was looking forward to the next grade and now all those grades are far behind me. Sometimes I wish I could go back, life was so much easier back then.

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    1. Seems like it now, but it wasn't. Not really. It was what we could handle at the time.

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  7. I must be in a mood. This doesn't make me wistful at all, it makes me sad. It sounds like a factory: kid goes in, young adult comes out, ad nauseum. Churn churn churn.

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    1. It isn't supposed to make you feel anything at all. What you get out of it is what you need to get out of it, and sad is a perfectly acceptable emotion.

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  8. I am still marveling at how fast the time has gone by. My baby boy is more than 40 now!! Sheesh how did that happen! I love your daydream!

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  9. That is a nice post. What a lovely way to mark the school year's end.

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I respond to comments* via email, unless your profile email is not enabled. Then, I'll reply in the comment thread. Eventually. Probably.

*Exception: I do not respond to "what if?" comments, but I do read them all. Those questions are open to your interpretation, and I don't wish to limit your imagination by what I thought the question was supposed to be.