"A Tree Grows in Denver" or What I learned over Winter Break

If there is one thing I truly miss about going to school in Ohio, it is the drive. A man finds out quite a bit about himself on a six hour drive with his thoughts and an Ipod. What I always really liked was the feeling I would get right as I got off the Turnpike in Denver. I can't really describe it, but it was as if something inside of me, something I had not felt in a long time, was renewed. I think quite simply I can call this feeling: Home. Since I have been at Millersville, this doesn't happen as much. Home's never too far away. But for some reason, maybe it was the intense semester or my lack of visiting friends throughout the semester, this break I felt that feeling again.

So as I stayed at home over break laying around with Libby, reading, lesson planning, having my mom cook breakfast for the boys, all of it felt good, it felt right. Yet things were different. My same old friends hung out at the same old places, but something about us had changed. We had left Denver four years ago and soon a lot of us are going to leave for good. We sat around one night at the Hill Top buying rounds and we heard a lot of the same stories: the baseball championship we won in middle school, the senior talent show that we rocked and we listened to Brennen and Gwinny argue about who was better at lacrosse (in the end the consensus of the table was they both blow). But in the midst of all of this, we threw out words like "graduation," "PRAXIS," "MCAT," "Grad School," "moving down south" and "falling in love."

As I sat last night in my basement, my sanctuary since middle school, I thought about how much things had changed and how much more they are going to after this spring. And for the first time in awhile I was scared about my future. Nervous to student teach. In the midst of this nervous breakdown I spotted the photo montage on the wall of senior year. Senior dress up day (Best Group Costume Award: Toy Story, just saying), Sir Valentine, Prom, Graduation. You can't tell by looking at those pictures, but I was scared back then too. scared that I'd go to Ohio and lose the friends I had always had. I was reminded of the book "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn". Betty Smith describes Francie the man character in terms of her home life. She says "Part of her life was made from the tree growing rankly in the yard. She was the bitter quarrels she had with her brother whom she loved dearly. She was Katie's secret, despairing weeping. She was the shame of her father staggering home drunk." Later Smith says that it's true that Francie was all of those things, but she was also something more.

One of the units I'm teaching this semester is rooted in Identity. I chose this because I believe it's paramount for students to have an understanding of who they are, why they are that way and where they want to be. For me, that basement, the photo collage, my friends, my family, the books I read, all of that has led me to where I am. I love the feeling I get when I pull into my driveway and hang out with my friends, but I also love sitting around talking and finding out that in the last four years we've each become more.