Preschool Graduation.
Last week my class graduated.
I'm an emotional mess haha
This job is such a unique experience.
It follows a specific cycle each year, and I like that.
The building relationships and learning about the students in the fall.
Seeing how much they have learned and how much the relationships have built trust and knowing in the winter.
The spring brings amazing appreciation for how much they have grown and developed.
Then the summer brings it all to an end and the cycle begins again in the fall.
The education season is the opposite of the gardening season. It begins in the fall and ends in the spring. The two cycles flowing beautifully.
Graduation always makes me cry
but it is good.
What would I rather have? The children stay four forever? I wouldn't wish that on them. I want them to continue to grow on their path of life.
It's this strange unique experience where I am so sad it is over. I'm sad I won't get to play Avengers with Souleymane, I'm sad Jalante won't sneak up behind me and jump on my back from the playground anymore. I'm sad I won't get to listen to Lilybeth read to me. No more stories about Kimani's messy playroom at home. No more ninja flips or anime on my phone for Xavier, no more soccer or basketball with Le'Andre. But yet I am filled with this feeling of fulfillment and accomplishment seeing these kids at graduation. Seeing how they can write their names, seeing how they can count to 20, listening to their vocabulary explode and expand.
This duel feeling. Joy and Sadness mixed perfectly to create this beautiful feeling inside me.
I walk past Hudson's cubby and see it empty and I just lose it.
No more drawling blue prints and building block houses with him, but yet I'm so excited for him to start kindergarten I know he will do so great!
I think this duel feeling is the greatest feeling we as humans can experience.
This grief that something has ended and yet this satisfaction that it happened.
Without the rarity, without the finite, without the work, the satisfaction cannot truly be experienced. It is always because of the path never the destination, It is always about the means that makes the ends so precious.
What good is it to win the lottery?
What good is it to have the helicopter drop you at the top of the mountain?
The ends never justify the means.
Life is in the means, the path. That's what life is, a path.
With that comes by nature loss and endings. Knowing I cannot hold on to anything, I can't keep any moment makes those moments more precious and satisfying than being handed my dreams.
Without the finite there is no content
without the contentment there is no grief when it ends, and it will always...end.
Is nostalgia idolatry?
So in the spring when the school year ends
the fall when the harvest comes in
when the relationship ends
when the vacation stops
when the story finishes
that feeling, that groan for more, that pain of loss, that understanding that all good things must come to an end... That is one of life's greatest gifts. It means that it mattered, and it was good.
These tears are the proof.
One of life's quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself and watch yourself softly becoming the author of something beautiful even if it is only a floating ash.
― Norman Maclean
A moment was the most you could ever expect from perfection.
-Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club
The Lumineers - Ophelia
Last week my class graduated.
I'm an emotional mess haha
This job is such a unique experience.
It follows a specific cycle each year, and I like that.
The building relationships and learning about the students in the fall.
Seeing how much they have learned and how much the relationships have built trust and knowing in the winter.
The spring brings amazing appreciation for how much they have grown and developed.
Then the summer brings it all to an end and the cycle begins again in the fall.
The education season is the opposite of the gardening season. It begins in the fall and ends in the spring. The two cycles flowing beautifully.
Graduation always makes me cry
but it is good.
What would I rather have? The children stay four forever? I wouldn't wish that on them. I want them to continue to grow on their path of life.
It's this strange unique experience where I am so sad it is over. I'm sad I won't get to play Avengers with Souleymane, I'm sad Jalante won't sneak up behind me and jump on my back from the playground anymore. I'm sad I won't get to listen to Lilybeth read to me. No more stories about Kimani's messy playroom at home. No more ninja flips or anime on my phone for Xavier, no more soccer or basketball with Le'Andre. But yet I am filled with this feeling of fulfillment and accomplishment seeing these kids at graduation. Seeing how they can write their names, seeing how they can count to 20, listening to their vocabulary explode and expand.
This duel feeling. Joy and Sadness mixed perfectly to create this beautiful feeling inside me.
I walk past Hudson's cubby and see it empty and I just lose it.
No more drawling blue prints and building block houses with him, but yet I'm so excited for him to start kindergarten I know he will do so great!
I think this duel feeling is the greatest feeling we as humans can experience.
This grief that something has ended and yet this satisfaction that it happened.
Without the rarity, without the finite, without the work, the satisfaction cannot truly be experienced. It is always because of the path never the destination, It is always about the means that makes the ends so precious.
What good is it to win the lottery?
What good is it to have the helicopter drop you at the top of the mountain?
The ends never justify the means.
Life is in the means, the path. That's what life is, a path.
With that comes by nature loss and endings. Knowing I cannot hold on to anything, I can't keep any moment makes those moments more precious and satisfying than being handed my dreams.
Without the finite there is no content
without the contentment there is no grief when it ends, and it will always...end.
Is nostalgia idolatry?
So in the spring when the school year ends
the fall when the harvest comes in
when the relationship ends
when the vacation stops
when the story finishes
that feeling, that groan for more, that pain of loss, that understanding that all good things must come to an end... That is one of life's greatest gifts. It means that it mattered, and it was good.
These tears are the proof.
One of life's quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself and watch yourself softly becoming the author of something beautiful even if it is only a floating ash.
― Norman Maclean
A moment was the most you could ever expect from perfection.
-Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club
The Lumineers - Ophelia