Tuesday was my last first day of school.
It’s a strange thing to commemorate, because I still have a whole semester of class before I graduate from UT. But school is all I have ever known, and the first day holds a special place in my heart.
In Missouri, Alex and I stood at the bus stop at the end of the neighbor’s driveway with our backpacks full of colored pencils and construction paper. I could never sleep the night before school started, and in the pictures from the bus stop I am all smiles and tightly-wound excitement. Even after we moved to Texas and it was no longer cool to love school just to love it, I remember carefully arranging my school supplies and first-day outfit the night before. Every year promised so many bright, shiny, new things to learn.
This year, on my last first day for a while, I couldn’t help but think of how far I’ve come from that hyper little kindergartener waiting on the bus. Some things feel like they’ve come full circle: I still carefully arranged my school supplies in my backpack; I still waited on the bus anxiously. But this time, the end is in sight. My last first day of school will give way to my first day of training camp, and of the World Race. Next year there will be so many bright, shiny, new things to learn.
So my last first day was an odd moment of reflection for me. Everything about my situation seems summed up by the phrase “already and not yet”- my education, my World Race, my relationship with God. I can see the degree, but in this first week the semester seems long. I am actively working towards going on this Race, but the reality hasn’t sunk in that I will be leaving for a year, missing my friends’ and family’s birthdays and weddings and graduations. Jesus seems so close and yet still distant, a mere whisper when I want a symphony.
But if I’ve learned anything from my many first days of school, it is that the time will pass swiftly. So I will hold on to every moment here, and listen for a crescendo.
