iLiza's eyes

I always get freaked out towards the end of the semester, especially in the spring. I guess it has something to do with the fact that the summer looms ahead as a vast emptiness of space and opportunity, of time to be taken advantage of or wasted. Maybe it has something to do with how I was brought up, going to school each year and finding no respite until late spring when I was granted freedom in the form of a last half-day with parties or movies instead of class.

When we're growing up, at least in this country, springtime almost becomes a sort of second New Year's Eve-- the last day of school is the countdown until the dropping of the ball, the first step into the unburdened sunlight is the moment we kiss our loved ones and scream "Happy New Year!" Life feels like a pattern in school--the same teacher and classmates and subjects--and our moment of freedom is the turning of a new leaf, it's the opportunity to get our stuff together, to make new academic and life goals. It feels like a new chance to spread our wings and discover something new about ourselves.

So maybe that's why I get so jittery at the end of a spring semester, especially this one. I'm not graduating, I'm not even packing and moving my things, and I'll hardly have a break before I'm in the classroom again. But regardless, that last day of school still looms and it seems to be shouting on the horizon "Happy Last Year of Childhood!" "Happy Last Year Before You're an Adult!"

With years, with experience, as each day becomes a smaller and smaller portion of our lives, I find myself looking back at all my end-of-the-year resolutions and finding myself frozen in the face of those in my future. I find myself wondering if our end-of-school-eves will become nothing but our nostalgic longings of the past; and if after all this school and all this education is done, what used to be our yearly step into the freedom of summer and possibility will merely become just another day in the office or just another change of the seasons.

So we stand here. We stand and look out towards that horizon, possibility one of the last we will have sight of. We cannot stop the time, we cannot delay the approach. Perhaps all we can do is have the courage to make the best resolution we possibly can and learn that in the future, that resolution is the kind that's always worth keeping.

posted by iliza @ 11:06 PM