the good thing about high school.

High School has the amazing ability to teach us about transitions really well.

High School lasts for four years. Sometimes those four years are the greatest four years of someone’s life. And then we leave that great thing and move on to something better. How could we ever leave? Well, we’re supposed to. It’s what life is about.

If we get stuck in High School, it means we have trouble getting on with those next things, whatever they are. (Uncle Rico)

No one asks…. are you going back to High School? Of course, we aren’t. Not because it wasn’t great, but because life… moves on. It was amazing for its time. And now we aren’t there anymore. It’s accepted and healthy.

Every Senior Class thinks they are going to do things that High School has never seen before. Little do they know they’ve been done just about every year since the High School started. That doesn’t mean the “new” things aren’t great, it doesn’t mean they don’t affect the students who’ve never seen them before. People grow, evolve, learn, and leave so new people can grow, evolve, learn, and… eventually leave.

Every Freshman class is nervous with anticipation. Every Senior class can’t wait to get out. Somewhere in-between there is excitement, dread, creativity, elation, and adventure. What happens in between? Healthy transition, learning, and movement.

Naiveté is a beautiful thing. It’s rampant in High School. In fact, it’s encouraged. Seniors may look on Freshmen as naive but rarely as stupid. They’ll learn. Like we did.

There are always teachers, mentors, and guides who help us transition. I wish there were more of them in the rest of life…. elders who realize that the point of life is not to get stuck in the routine but to use the routine to circle around a few times and then leave the orbit to find another planet.

And yet… with all these cycles, it is different every year. Those four years matter. Every freshman class, for all its similarities to the one before it, is subtly different than the one that came before it. It’s how the slow train of change works, little by little amongst the routine… leading that old woman to say… “You know when I was in High School, we just didn’t do it that way…”

So, here’s to more High School in whatever phase of life you’re in. Keep transitioning!