A whole year
A year. It's been an entire year. I just can't believe it.
I watched my juniors walk across the stage yesterday with smiles and tears. I looked in their eyes, and I remembered that feeling. "This isn't happening. This isn't real. I made it. I really made it. Oh god, but I don't want to go." I hugged them as they cried, just as my seniors hugged me. I felt so old, and so young at the same time.
Three days in Natchitoches made me relive the most wonderful moments of my life thus far. Somewhere in that, I realized something. When you walk out that Colosseum, it really is "the end of the world as we know it". LSMSA as it was in 2008 ceased to exist when we graduated, replaced by LSMSA 2009. It changed, a little, not so much that it was unrecognizable. But that world is theirs, to hold on to and keep and remember and love, just as our world is ours. The school moves on, but that senior year is encapsulated, immortalized. It will never be repeated just as it was.
There is something beautiful about the continuum of that place. How it changes yet stays the same, how it goes on without skipping a beat. I looked at the rising senior class, most of whom I know little or nothing about, but I knew them. I saw some of the same personalities, the same interests, the same looks as people in my class. I knew how they felt as they run at those chairs, pushing and laughing. I knew how hard it was to say goodbye. I'd never met them, but I knew them, and that is something about LSMSA you find no where else. I cherish that knowledge, because in some ways, we never really left at all.
Congratulations class of '09. In the next few days, weeks, you'll be happy and sad. You'll wonder why you took it for granted, waited for graduation, why you didn't enjoy it more. You'll miss people and places and times. As the days go on, you'll enter college, make new friends and new memories. You'll be just fine, but you'll never forget those two years. Something will remind you, and you'll smile, think about it for a moment. You'll be back, hugging your juniors and crying with them, wondering why you haven't let go yet. I don't think we ever do, really. We all leave a piece of ourselves, of our hearts in Natchitoches. When we hand Dr. Pat that gift on stage, as he slips it silently into whatever container is used that year, we let a little bit of us stay.
I watched my juniors walk across the stage yesterday with smiles and tears. I looked in their eyes, and I remembered that feeling. "This isn't happening. This isn't real. I made it. I really made it. Oh god, but I don't want to go." I hugged them as they cried, just as my seniors hugged me. I felt so old, and so young at the same time.
Three days in Natchitoches made me relive the most wonderful moments of my life thus far. Somewhere in that, I realized something. When you walk out that Colosseum, it really is "the end of the world as we know it". LSMSA as it was in 2008 ceased to exist when we graduated, replaced by LSMSA 2009. It changed, a little, not so much that it was unrecognizable. But that world is theirs, to hold on to and keep and remember and love, just as our world is ours. The school moves on, but that senior year is encapsulated, immortalized. It will never be repeated just as it was.
There is something beautiful about the continuum of that place. How it changes yet stays the same, how it goes on without skipping a beat. I looked at the rising senior class, most of whom I know little or nothing about, but I knew them. I saw some of the same personalities, the same interests, the same looks as people in my class. I knew how they felt as they run at those chairs, pushing and laughing. I knew how hard it was to say goodbye. I'd never met them, but I knew them, and that is something about LSMSA you find no where else. I cherish that knowledge, because in some ways, we never really left at all.
Congratulations class of '09. In the next few days, weeks, you'll be happy and sad. You'll wonder why you took it for granted, waited for graduation, why you didn't enjoy it more. You'll miss people and places and times. As the days go on, you'll enter college, make new friends and new memories. You'll be just fine, but you'll never forget those two years. Something will remind you, and you'll smile, think about it for a moment. You'll be back, hugging your juniors and crying with them, wondering why you haven't let go yet. I don't think we ever do, really. We all leave a piece of ourselves, of our hearts in Natchitoches. When we hand Dr. Pat that gift on stage, as he slips it silently into whatever container is used that year, we let a little bit of us stay.