Since I just sorta finished high school, I feel like I should write a post about what this means to my coming of age--and how I think of coming of age now. At the beginning of the course I defined coming of age to be knowing what you want to do (with your life etc.) and doing it. While my understanding of coming of age has altered over the course of this course (of course), that original definition is still at the heart of it. I have gained many nuances to this conceptualization, but not in a way that I can express them--that understanding has simply become part of me now. Anyway, that was just to say that I still define coming of age to be knowing what you want to do and doing it.
In light of this, I do not feel all that much more come of age now than I did three hours ago, before I finished my last day of high school. Nothing about my idea of what I want to do has changed--I have had a quite solid idea of that since the beginning of this year. However, I have matured some in the sense that I have gotten closer to that goal of what I want to do--yeah, it wasn't school, crazy (not that I don't like school, I do really enjoy much of it, but I have bigger/more important to me plans). Anyhoo, wanting to graduate was a big part of what was standing in the way of what I want(ed) to do--take a gap year in MS etc.--and now that I have finished school, I feel much closer to this. Well, I guess after I finish this post I will actually be done with school, but even now I don't feel much different. This last day of school has brought me no closer to my goal chronologically, but it has brought me closer in some way--I have crossed some large, and perhaps not completely arbitrary boundary, and now I am that much closer to next year. It seems funny to me that the end of school can feel like so much and so little at the same time, and it still hasn't really hit me yet that I am never going back to high school. This post is super ramble-y, sorry about that. I am a little in shock still.
I suppose I will wrap this up now by saying that this course has helped me come of age by gaining understanding of the world--and therefore of how I want to interact with it--and that there are lots of nuances in coming of age, and some things can be huge and minuscule at the same time. Coming of age is not something that you will necessarily feel, but I think that you will know when you have found what you want to do, and when you are doing it. This may not always happen in everyone's lives, but I think that everyone has the ability to get close to it if they pay attention to themselves, and work to understand everything behind everything--all of the "why"s behind every other "why". Wisdom, yo. hear me now believe me later, I guess. Or not.
Good luck everybody, and I love you all.
To be honest, I have never thought of coming of age in this way. However, I feel like this is a really interesting and great way to define what coming of age is. We spend so much of our lives thinking about what we want to be doing with our life that it definitely is a big factor in what coming of age is. I'm glad this course has reinforced that for you and I wish you the best of luck with everything after highschool that you pursue.
ReplyDeleteI was talking to a few of my friends and they said that it "hadn't hit them yet"; that this was supposed to be a dramatic ending to all five (or four, or three) years at Uni. It seemed like it wasn't real, like we were just going to get up and go back to the routine that we've spent years perfecting. On Monday, go to school before 8, head to class once the bell rings, listen to Mr. Mitchell talk (for those in first hour Coming of Age). Even the handprints don't feel real, which leads me to wonder, when will it hit me? When I'm in my cap and gown, getting ready to walk down the steps to my seat for graduation? When I'm crossing the stage? Or when I make the drive down to Alabama? These questions continue to plague my mind. But in the end, I suppose that all I can do is let it happen.
ReplyDeleteAs much as I know better not to expect some monumental change to occur when I graduate, I can't help but look forward to it. There's something about breaking a routine you've been stuck in for so long, and even if that finish line is not completely arbitrary, it is a finish line nonetheless. I'm happy that you have gotten to achieve that and I can't wait to see where it leads you -- good luck, I'll miss you!
ReplyDeleteI always have a tendency to try to divide my life into sections. As a kid and as a teenager, the easiest way to do so was to pout the barriar between elementary, middle and high school. Naturally, when I graduated from one to the next, I began to look towards the next one. As such, these past 4 years have been leading up to my highschool graduation next year. Of course, I don't expect a major change in my personality or anything. But nonetheless, it represents the end of one chapter of my life and the beginning of the next one. BTW I like your title and sub-title, Tim xD
ReplyDeleteI've had two traditional coming of age experiences in the last few days, so I have quite a bit to reflect on. Turing 18 years old and graduation were such different events for me. As you mentioned, graduating has let me come closer to my goals and my future, despite the fact that it has done nothing chronologically. I feel a difference and a change in myself that I didn't really think would happen. On the other hand, turning 18 hasn't really done anything for me. It's just interesting to see how different events that might traditionally be seen as coming of age vary for everyone.
ReplyDeleteIt's true that there's not some instant transformation, when something like high school ends, or an eighteenth birthday is reached. And there certainly can be this unreal feeling to it all, which has to do (I think) with the awareness of something ending *as it's ending*, and we have these unspoken expectations of what it will feel like, or what we'll say and do, and those are (inevitably?) disappointed.
ReplyDeleteBut in very real terms, your life did change on Friday (only to be stretched out into this week of aimlessness followed by the ceremonial climax of graduation), in that your circumstances have undergone a dramatic transformation. Going to Mississippi and immersing yourself in that work and that culture will be so different from your daily life at Uni, and I expect that it will make you different as well.
It might be interesting to revisit this post in a year's time, and see what you think.