Boats

A few days ago, I was driving home and I received a phone call from an old friend. She asked me if I would like to go with her and a few of our other friends out to the local lake. Apparently, her brother had purchased a boat, and even though the wind was blowing 30+ miles per hour, I answered in the only way I knew how with my friends.

Of course.

Well, the water was freezing, tubing was kind of a nightmare in the wind, and we lost a window and a pair of sunglasses. But, we laughed more than we had in a long time, sang water related songs, and told stories of our past together that we thought had been buried in the murky water of the lake. As we sat on the water, I looked at my friend, now owner of a boat, and he looked at me. The words spilled out of both of us before we could stop them.

"This is really weird."

It's funny how some people spend their whole lives trying to run from becoming their parents. I'm not saying that my friends and I do or do not want to become our parents, but in that moment, it seemed as though we were on and eerie path of familiarity. You see, a few years ago, we were all children, riding on a boat with our parents. I can remember watching our families laughing on the boat, talking about everything and nothing at the same time.

I was back on that old boat, it seemed.

After a moment of hesitation, I laughed at our coincidental comment. He smiled brightly before following up with, "Who would've thought we'd be here? Look at us...we're adults."I shook my head and looked around for a moment. The old lake was the same as I had always remembered it; I watched my friend turn the boat and take off through the water.

Just like his dad used to.

I can remember my friends and I saying, "When I grow up, I will never do that like my parents." For the most part, we have all tried to stick to those decisions, but, we are still young. Our parents have given us more than we could have ever hoped for, and there is still so much for us to learn from them. We don't claim to have the wisdom of our parents, and you know, I don't think we really mind the moments in life when we realize and accept the one thing we thought we'd want to avoid.

Some part of us realizes, however big or small those parts may be...

Ah, hell. We're becoming our parents.

I'm A Big Kid Now

I have spent the majority of my life knowing what I would do, "when I grew up." Of course, 'knowing that' is not the same thing as 'doing that.'  Countless people told me that I would be a great teacher and that I should really think about becoming one. At first, I would shrug at them and agree, but after a while, it started to irritate me that so many people thought they knew what I would do with my life. So, naturally, I began to rebel at that notion.

For a while.

I left my hometown six years ago to attend a university that was as far away from there as I could get while still in the state of Kansas. I have many reasons for doing this, but the main reason is that I wanted to distance myself from what I had always known. I wanted to find what I was really supposed to do without being forced to listen to what other people wanted me to do.

I wanted to explore my options.

And explore I did. Everyone says that the first two years in college are worthless. You only take classes that are general requirements, which is true, but I don't think they are worthless. I enrolled in a wide variety of classes that opened my mind to new possibilities and taught me things that I never would have learned in any other setting. I can make a weapon from beating two rocks together like a caveman, and even tell you what type of rocks work best; I can tell you myths and legends of a indigenous Asian tribe; I can even balance a ledger.

All of these things made me realize what I would become.

The interesting thing about education is that it is a literal melting pot of people and cultures united for a common goal. Yeah, okay, that sounded like a super hero line. But in all honesty, to be a teacher, one must have an understanding of many aspect of life and learning, not just the piece that you are charged to teach. As I looked at the document to declare my major, I thought about all my classes, and a majority were literature and cultural classes. I stared at the transcript for a moment and a thought occurred to me.

Ah hell, Chesney. You did just what they said you would.

Needless to say, I declared to be a teacher. I thought about it for a long time, and I still wondered if I was just doing it because everyone told me that I would. But after all these years studying, I realized that I was wrong to think that. I love education. Clearly, I have been in school for 19 years. But in all honesty, becoming a teacher has been one of the greatest joys I have found in my life. I have spent six years learning and training to become something I spent my whole life waiting for. So it was a surreal moment when I read an email from a professor congratulating me on finishing and wishing me the best of luck in the future.

I laughed after reading it.

I couldn't believe that I had made it this far.

Good lord. They're actually going to let me teach.