Turnover

Even though it has now been over a year since I graduated high school--Westminster School in Simsbury, CT--I have continued to read emails on the Westminster email network, both personal emails (updates from Facebook, banking, and other assorted alerts) and school emails (general Westy news, sports information, etc.). A few days ago I was notified that on June 30, my email account would be deleted from the system. While most of my graduation class has totally cut the cord, I have lingered on in the hallways of the electronic Westminster for 13 months. Next week, I will be evicted from it indefinitely, and will have to rely on my Washington & Lee University (my current site of academic misadventure) email address in terms of academic-based emails. Most people wouldn't so much as sniff at this fact, but being the sappy overthinker that I am, I would like to reflect and take you, dear readers along for the (brief, I promise) ride.

As a sappy overthinker, I am grasping at a meaning in this seemingly routine event. My deeply beloved high school alma mater is kicking me out into the real world (which is only ever-so-slightly more real) of college life. The only way for me to keep up with Westminster happenings for the next couple years will be through my sister. I have spent so very much time spent browsing emails on that server in the past five years (far less this year, but still a little bit). All those emails as a single oeuvre have contributed to my mental and social shaping. They (and what they represent) have had an immeasurable impact on my present and future character. At the risk of sounding a braggart I consider myself a generally decent, intelligent, socially-viable (that last bit will probably raise the most disagreement from some of you, dear readers) chap. I owe a large amount of that to jolly old Westminster. It's a shame that I cannot thank emails, and I did my share of thanking 13 months ago, so I'll have to fade into the Westminster West as I rise in the Washington & Lee East.

With a year behind me at dear Washington & Lee (stay tuned for a more focused reflection on this past year), I have had time to transition into a college student. But to this day I find myself reminiscing often on my four years at Westminster. As many say about things that are behind them, I regret the times I took the place for granted because some days all I want to do is project back to my time there, if only for a moment. Don't get me wrong; I loved my year at Washington & Lee and look forward to three more just like it (and better, hopefully). But it's just not the same. Even though W&L is small (~1800 students, about 450 in each grade), I'll never know who everyone in my grade, much less my school. I found such comfort in recognizing every face I saw on a daily basis. That will never happen again, no mater how many people I meet at W&L.

I realize what this nostalgic flood, and its concomitant melancholy means. I need to finally turn the page, to acknowledge the fun I had at Westminster, but to set it aside as the irrevocable past. Before I return to Lexington at the beginning of September, I need to turn my attention more fully to the fun ahead of me. The stripping of my Westminster email account ultimately represents a final warning for me to move on. Otherwise, it will become harder and harder the further and further I get from May 27, 2007 to turn my attention fully towards the present and future. If I do not heed this final call, I run the risk of becoming a person who is constrained to look back an mope on missed opportunities, an uncontrollable "what if?" machine. It's time to bid a fond fare-well to Simsbury and to look Lexington, Virginia in the eye, smile, and become properly acquainted.

No lyrics this evening (it's 18:30 here in London), just one of my favorite poems, symbolic of my struggle. It is "On Turning Ten," by Billy Collins.

"The whole idea of it makes me feel
like I'm coming down with something,
something worse than any stomach ache
or the headaches I get from reading in bad light--
a kind of measles of the spirit,
a mumps of the psyche,
a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.

You tell me it is too early to be looking back,
but that is because you have forgotten
the perfect simplicity of being one
and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.
But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.
At four I was an Arabian wizard.
I could make myself invisible
by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.
At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.

But now I am mostly at the window
watching the late afternoon light.
Back then it never fell so solemnly
against the side of my tree house,
and my bicycle never leaned against the garage
as it does today,
all the dark blue speed drained out of it.

This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,
as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.
It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,
time to turn the first big number.

It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I could shine.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,
I skin my knees. I bleed."