Crying in my cereal...

...makes for a very soggy bowl of Wheaties.

I don't suggest it, really. It's not yummy at all! True, Friday morning as I sat dripping into my figurative breakfast, I'd only had about five hours of sleep during the previous 51 hours, had spent the day before baking all kinds of goodies, rushing to get ready for graduation, interpreting a challenging ceremony (the acoustics were TERRIBLE!), then had a busy evening helping with the Seniors all-night party, and a morning of hauling the last few items from my office. So I suppose it's not too surprising that I was an emotional train wreck.

What a mixed bag this week has been - so much fun and excitement, and lots of wistful 'if only's'. Cleaning out my office on Monday was rather depressing. Lagoon on Tuesday was a load of fun with lots of good food and a chance to chat with people I won't see again for a very long time. Wednesday was the Senior assembly (hilarious!) and graduation practice (long, boring and VERY necessary!) I also did a bit of shopping on Wednesday, bought myself a pretty new dress suit, all black (of course), and perfect for interpreting formal occasions (and it should come in handy for interviews too!)

Graduation itself was pretty good. I don't have much to compare it to - I really have almost no recollection of my HS graduation, and graduating from college is entirely different. They definitely had their share of comedic errors - a couple of miscues, feedback from the microphones, some uncertainty about what was next, the students who skipped practice naturally failed to read the posted notes and missed the memo on what to do and when... it was all just enough to keep me smothering a laugh, and not enough to ruin anything. There was the boring speech, the funny speech, the unintelligible inspirational speech. The depressing choir song about death that sounded lovely anyways, the orchestra number that finally gave me a chance to get a drink of water and sit for a minute, and then everyone's favorite unending song, Pomp and Circumstance. Names were read, tassels were turned, caps were tossed and voilà - they were graduated.

And then all of a sudden, what had felt like a silly game of dress-up crashed into reality, and I had to go 'get a drink of water' and compose myself.

Most teachers only get to know their students really well for a year, maybe two. I was lucky enough to spend six years in a very unique position, closer in some ways than most teachers ever get, to almost an entire class. Parents cry at graduation to see their kids growing up, but graduation doesn't mean they loose their kids - just that things are changing. I will get lucky, and see some of these kids again, but many of them are suddenly out of my life. It hurts to loose these people. Especially when I've finally been in a place long enough to really put down roots, settle in and grow. Then all of a sudden those roots get severed. First, the small outer rootlets, then the bigger offshoots. Finally the taproot gets the ax and you are left with raw, tender oozing wounds in your heart. You would think that having moved so many times, I would be good at this, but no. It just gets worse every time. Just because we can't see these emotional connections that we make, doesn't mean that it's less painful to cut them than it would be to cut physical ones.

I have said before how much I love my job, and it is true - it is perfect for me on so many levels. But it does have it's drawbacks - and that is that I never really get to interact with the students as myself - so even though they are used to me (for the most part) very few of them know anything about me. I am kinda like a sentient phone line - I hear it all, see it all and know them all, but when you call your friends or log onto the internet, nobody 'sees' the wires. They say the best communication mediums disappear - and that is what I worked so hard to do. I guess I did my job too well. :) I miss what I never had, the relationships with students that teachers get to develop. It's easier not to miss it when you don't know what you're missing, but I know so well how amazing these kids are.

But even though it hurts to stand back and watch them go, I really am so happy for these kids. They have come so far, grown so much, and worked so hard (some a little more than others). As much as I wish things had lasted longer, I wouldn't hold them back for anything. Luckily I have one or two connections on Facebook, so perhaps I will hear updates on people once in a while - I can't wait to hear through the grapevine that this one is now working at NASA (I'm gonna send this one to you, Elizabeth, she is pretty cool), while this one got married (just give it a few years, PLEASE!) and that one (who wanted to stay local) got called to serve in Ghana.

So I will go and shed my few quiet tears in private (this time into my chocolate ice cream) while I watch Mary Tyler Moore, and try to figure out some (kosher) way to get a few more Facebook friends.