While much of the world celebrates the New Year on January 1, or the Lunar New Year towards the end of January, or the Fiscal New Year July 1, or the Hijri New Year just a few days ago, or Rosh Hashanah (which falls at the end of September this year), my own sense of new year inevitably starts the Tuesday after Labor Day.
Of course, schools in the South and the West already started several weeks ago, but, around where I live, Labor Day is the end of the summer, a time not only to put away your white shoes, but to pick up that new pair of penny loafers I always wore when I was a student and get back into the academic rhythm. My wife always tells me that I’m not allowed to use myself as an example for anything, and I sort of see her point; I always loved going back to school, seeing my friends, figuring out my new teachers, and making great discoveries in learning. Yes, I know I’m a nerd. But, rather like Harry Potter, my summers always seemed to drag on, and I can almost guarantee that if I had taken the Hogwarts Express to school, it would have been the happiest journey of my year.
At the same time, I’m well aware that for most students, these first weeks of school are dreadful.
You’ve put off doing that summer reading a bit too long, and now you only have two days to read 400 of the most boring pages you’ve ever seen. You don’t really remember what you’re supposed to divide negative b plus or minus the square root of b squared minus 4ac by. And you suddenly have to recover from that student jet lag, wherein you immediately try to sleep again like a normal human being, getting up at 6:30 to get ready for school instead of falling asleep at a quarter to 6 and waking sometime past 2 in the afternoon. If you are luckier than I ever was, you find yourself heartbroken by the end of the summer fling you truly believed could survive the fact that you go to rival high schools, where you are a football player and she’s a cheerleader. What might have been if summer never ended... But, as always, it did. And, now, school is back!
I focus my attention on the surreal feelings among high school seniors at realizing they’re the ones everyone is looking up to this year.
The team captains, the presidents of the student council, the heads of the volunteer program, and whatever positions of authority exist for students during their senior years. You’re them now. Time to step up your game, whatever it is you do. Any game you’re going to win, play you’re going to put on, newspaper you’re going to publish, girl or guy you’re going to finally get the guts to ask out, all of that is happening NOW.
But, amid your sleep deprivation, feelings of unworthiness, and ill preparation to find everyone looking to you for guidance, you have one more task — a task which is likely to cause you the most stress and anxiety, the biggest potential for triumph, and tragedy in your young lives: college applications. I’m not going to pretend that college isn’t the biggest choice you’ll likely face this year, with many ramifications for your future. But, as in the Greek myth of Pandora, hope remains, despite the seeming chaos swirling around you at times.
“All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”
Over the next several weeks, I’m going to do quite a bit of posting about applications, essays, last minute SAT prep, and the like. But, for today, I want to focus on that hope. Whether you are just starting school this week, or have been in school for several weeks already, the beginning of the school year is full of possibilities, and none more so than the start of your senior year. In your inevitable moments of stress and worry, I urge you to contemplate the words of Julian of Norwich, a woman who lived through the Plague and the death of almost a third of her town: “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.” If a medieval woman literally staring death in the eye can be so confident that things will work out, so too can a high school senior heading into the middle part of the 21st century face down the college application process with confidence. And, in those inevitable moments where you worry, don’t be afraid to reach out to a parent, a teacher, a friend, or someone like me, to help you through whatever might be causing you distress.