Growing Pains and Spies
It’s graduation season, and I don’t know about you but I have been made painfully aware of this. Really – my body is in pain. I am sunburned from the hours spent out side and, well, to be honest I’m starting to feel that if I never sit down on a hard, plastic chair again it will be too soon. Honestly, though, it’s a small price to pay for supporting friends and family. I can survive a sore bottom for them, And, really, I appreciate the opportunity to reflect on my own past and the path I have walked since I graduated high school.
Sitting through these graduations I have been struck by two profound thoughts: 1) I wouldn’t go back if you PAID me! and 2) Lord, have mercy! We must be the most annoying people to sit next to.
I would not go back to high school if I was paid to. I would not return to that time of my life. Now, I am one of those strange people who will freely admit that they enjoyed high school. I had a blast! I was involved in activities that I enjoyed and I was good at them. I did well in classes. And while I did have a core group of friends I was also somewhat of a clique-hopper, so I never felt truly rejected or left out. I enjoyed high school.
That being said, I also went through a lot of growing pains in high school. I am sure everyone will agree that growing pains are pretty terrible. Grown ups, people long past the point of physical growing pains, will cringe when they hear the term. Nobody likes them, but they are a fact of life. They are, however, made more bearable by the knowledge that they are accompanied by growth. We are not in pain without reason – when the pain is gone we will be taller, bigger, stronger.
The same can be said for emotional or spiritual growing pains. The main difference is that we very often don’t recognize the pain for what it was until it has long passed.
High school, for me, was a time of growing pains. They were not constant – I was more often without pain than with it. Since high school I have experienced even more growing pains. (Really, it’s quite distressing when I think of just how much growing I’ve needed, and how much more is to come.) Going back to high school, regardless of how much I enjoyed myself, would erase all of my growth. I would be a flower in reverse, growing from bloom to seed. I do not want to do that.
One of the main things I would miss if I walked backwards on my path is the ability to take great joy in a small moment. What I have experienced of life so far has taught me that so much is given in each moment. All we have to do is reach out and take it. I was born with a heart of laughter, and I take great delight in using that heart. Truly, it makes me excited to experience more of life.
Each moment has much to offer, even moments sitting in an uncomfortable chair hoping your sunscreen will work even as you feel like you are melting. Today I had such a moment. I could have let it bring me down. Luckily, though, I was sitting with friends, and the joy of being with them outweighed the discomfort of the situation.
We chatted through the entire ceremony No, we weren’t catching up on the latest drama, or talking about what was on TV last night. We were imagining what our situation would be if we were in a spy movie. Suddenly every person with a camera became an enemy spy, an assassin, scoping out the targets: us. The beautiful Sunken Gardens of the Santa Barbara courthouse became grounds for running and strategic cover from the assassins.
When we ventured inside the courthouse to find a bathroom we hurried through the open spaces, twirling and ducking into doorways to avoid the imaginary spray of bullets. we searched the bathroom (“All clear!”) and then returned to the rest of the group the same way we had left: running and laughing so hard we had a hard time breathing. And as we sprinted across the lawn to get to the parking lot we were thankful that bad guys are such bad shots. There was no way we would have survived otherwise.
Sure, it was juvenile of me – a college graduate and a teacher – to play “spy” at a high school graduation. And yes, I did feel slightly guilty about the constant whispers we inflicted on the people around us. But more than anything I was thankful. I was thankful that my path of growing pains has helped mold me into a person who can take such joy from a small moment.
I was thankful that while I recognize how much I enjoyed high school I also recognize that I don’t want to go back. Ever. I would never want to sacrifice the woman I am becoming – even if she does play “spy” – for the girl I was then. Growing pains and all.