“And just like that it’s over. We tend to
our wounded, we count our dead.”
I just completed something
that, one year ago, I thought I wouldn’t be qualified to do for at least
another couple of years. I don’t really know how it happened, except for the
fact that the opportunity presented itself, I took it, and I ran with it. This
was a challenge. It was a challenging thing to be faced with every day. It
overwhelms me when I think of how many days I checked children onto my roster,
how many kids passed under my instruction, how many hours I spent in the
classroom wrangling the focus of the young ones. It was a lot.
I could
speak for ages about the invaluable lessons I learned in the many moments of
joy, but, in all honestly, I was surprised most by what I learned during the
times when I was angry. At some points, I was angry at situations of losing
opportunity to people I felt didn’t work as hard as me for. I was angry at said
people. I was irritated with some of the other interns because of their
personalities, because of their privileges… but when all pulls through, I
realized that it’s okay. Because, in the end, we’re all just trying our best.
It’s that pure, it’s that simple. We’re all just trying our best. Nobody means
harm, nobody means to be a bother, and conflict exists because priorities are
in different places. We all have our eyes focused on different end points and we’re
all just trying so so hard to get
there. For months, we faked smiles for the sake of getting along. We held our
tongues for the sake of avoiding conflict. We shifted eyes for the sake of
letting nearly trivial things slide. Because we knew that we held each other
up. We were each a fragment of the house of cards. And, after that, I think I
learned what family means. I oftentimes hear people speaking of how their
family members are diverse and borderline crazy, but they “love it anyways,
because that’s who we are” and I didn’t understand that until the moment we
started to say goodbye. Until I looked into the eyes of the people I internally
fumed over, until I held them in my arms and realized that… hey. This is what
we are. Like it or not, we share this life. This is the family we have built.
And each and every one of us… all we’re really doing is trying to do our best.
What
has been the norm for us will never be our lives again. Right now, when we see
the photos, we see a reflection of our current lives. But our paths now
diverge. We came from all different corners of the country and walks of life,
and we will now disperse right back into different corners of the country and
walks of life, but at least we walked this bit together. At least we shared
this. No matter where we came from and where we go, these eleven weeks have
been stamped upon our lives.
In
eleven weeks, I learned to laugh. I now laugh louder, more frequently, more
boldly. Because joy should not be invalidated, and humor should be appreciated.
Honestly,
I’m not sure I would say that I put as much into it as I should have, and, in
turn, I’m not sure I would say that I got as much out of it as I could have. I
thought I would pursue connections more, initiate conversations more, deepen
friendships more. There are so many things I thought I was going to do. But the
trouble is, I thought I had time. Reflecting on that, I now am reminded to
never get into the groove of things. No matter how structured your situation
is, as soon as you start falling into routine, you stop taking initiative, you
stop pushing farther. So, like always, I know that I could have done better. There
isn’t a second time around for this, but there is a first time around for the next thing. And I’ll try harder
then. I’ll do better then. Because that’s all I’m trying to do.
Because
that’s all I’m going to do.
