The Fire of Adolescence

It's Friday.

There is a perfectionist that owns a bundle of the real estate deep within me. And right now, all those perfectionist parts in me are berating me with criticism for having watched idly as Thursday passed without having written a new post.  But you know what? I wasn't idle at all. Note remotely.

Instead, I was living alongside my students. Nothing compares to the experiences of watching young people become better versions of themselves; watching them carve away the passive parts of themselves, only to find that there are amazing, capable, brave, and mature young men and women waiting in the wings of their life.

Today I told my students that the past week we spent together in the Adirondacks was equipping them with the ability to become the heroes of their own lives.

Nobody wants to grow complacent.
Nobody wants to be a passive participant in their own lives.
Nobody wants to be cast in their life as "third blond boy" or "girl with the backpack."

But we do it all the time. I find myself reverting to auto pilot on my commutes, my routines, and my interactions.

We need to break form. To take risks.

My students were made to be the heroes. They are protagonists. Their stories are written with deep dreams and meticulously developed character traits. There are internal struggles, foibles, challenges, and climaxes. There are moments that require real heroism, and that elicit deep sorrows.

The shapes of my students' stories are varied and REAL. They are different and they are the same.

And just like that, I am reminded of a moment .

The students looked into a fire, huddled close to one another, and forgot about themselves. Their gazes bled into one another's, and they saw the impossible beauty of the flames, the gleam of the light, the reflection of the moon on the water around them. They stopped being themselves and transformed into a breathing, living organism with its own energy.

Like fires, adolescence can gleam and spark, but it can also grow dull, cool, and turn to ash. This past week reminded me that all fires need three things

Heat
Fuel
& Oxygen

I think, in both a literal and figurative sense, the same is true of human beings.

The origins of their physical heat, their physical fuel, and physical oxygen matter; and so, too, do the sources of emotional heat, emotional fuel, and emotional oxygen.

For four days, we got it right. Now that we return to the classrooms, to the routines, it's all about maintaining the fire triangle, because fires don't work on auto pilot. And I'm pretty sure there's no app that gathers the kindling.