I miss those days,
I miss those days,
Autumn is falling,
and I won’t be going away.

a thousand people just like me,
all frightened and excited to begin,
I miss those days,
they won’t be coming back again. - Andrew Osenga

The previous post was pretty much a news report, so here’s the more “touchy feely” side of things…

A few days ago, standing behind our new apartment complex with a bundle of flattened cardboard boxes in my arms, the words of Andrew Osenga’s song I Miss Those Days began playing in my head. All the folks helping us move in had left. And suddenly it was like Mom and Dad had just driven away and here I was at State U.

You see, I’d never been through that rite of passage…the first day alone away at school. Karyn and I didn’t do our undergrad college until we already had kids of our own, and then we did it mostly through a distance program. But now I’ve left everything settled and familiar and moved away to start seminary.

It’s funny that although opportunities for doing seminary through distance learning are increasing all the time, Karyn and I never really gave them much consideration. Something in us, I think, wanted the big stone buildings with ivy creeping up the side. Buildings with names that end in Hall. We wanted classmates, the ones you stand around in the hallway with discussing that new idea the prof put out in class…the ones you roll your eyes at when the TA tells you that, oh yeah, he forgot to mention that there’s a test tomorrow. And like Andrew in his lament, we want at the end to hear someone “calling our names” as we walk across a platform.

But as I hurled the cardboard into the dumpster, I felt a little afraid, a little alone. Our metaphorical Mom and Dad had driven away, and here we were committed to this grand escapade. But also, I felt more than a little happy. Happy because I was actually doing this after all these years. Happy because never again would I have to wish that I had done it.

And, like Andrew at the end of his song, and unlike that imaginary young college student waving goodbye to the tail lights of the family car, I am not here alone.

but I am happy now,
oh so happy, that I’ve found you,
And I am quiet now,
yes, and quite content,
now that we’ve been living here,
cause I’ve got everything I’d ever needed,
and half the things I’d ever want.
and I may miss those days,
but if they came back,
I would miss you so much more.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 29th, 2004 at 11:33 pm and is filed under It`s All About Me, Tell Me a Story. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.