There was once a time in my not-so-recent educative career where I and my 11-year-old peers were forced against our will for fifty minutes a week to listen to the dangers of drugs, alcohol, and violence from a middle-aged cop with a spare tire and 3 o'clock shadow. For those of you who never experienced the awe and wonderment of the D.A.R.E. program in grade school: you didn't miss much. And to Sgt. Winters who was the officer in charge of us fifth-graders at our rowdiest time of the day: yes, we're alive, and yes, we're strong in our promise of actively breaking those rules in our college years.
We had the coloring sheets, "dangerous predator" films from the 70s, and group role-playing that really consisted of me discussing which classmate I'd arrange a playground marriage with next (this actually happened quite a lot, complete with paper veils and tiered sand cakes). I'm sure that none of my then-classmates remember much else about these weekly home and school association-sponsored visits, and truthfully neither do I. But I find that fate sometimes has a way of framing the small, significant moments in life with a mindless, meaningless fog so that we might look back nine years later and see it clearly in all its brilliance. It was during D.A.R.E. one day that the fog gave rise to, quite possibly, one of the only things I committed to memory from my fifth-grade year.
"We all like balloons, right? Balloons are better and bring more joy when they're all blown up. But when they don't have any air, they're just kind of sad and lonely-looking." Sgt. Winters was giving the self-esteem talk using a blue latex balloon. Had I been more fluent in sexual innuendo as an 11-year-old, I expect there would have been an abundance of inappropriateness from my end and certainly a few trips to The Office, but I digress...balloons. He went on to explain that every time someone told Susie that she had a nice smile, her self-esteem balloon was filled with a little air. When Johnny hit a home run and his teammates cheered him on as he ran across the bases, his filled even more. But when Julie told Mary she couldn't sit by her at lunch, Mary's balloon lost some air. And as is expected, when Billy got a D on his math quiz his balloon deflated too. These were concepts I could grasp at that age. Now, I'm not going to start talking about self-esteem, or all the problems puberty causes, or the jungle that would be high school...none of that. I've applied the simple Balloon to something a bit different, about the worth and happiness we strive to find in our own lives.
We spend our entire grade school education preparing ourselves to enter high school. We spend high school preparing twice as hard to get into college. We spend college working probably five times harder to achieve various things, whether it's an entrance to graduate school or a "real job". We are constantly following the path that is "the system". Without "the system", we don't get good jobs, we don't earn money, we aren't successful, no one likes us, our parents are ashamed of us, and we wind up miserable and unhappy...right? But what about the others that didn't follow the system? The hard-working man who began his job after high school to support his family? The artist who works in a cafe to support herself? Surely THESE people cannot be happy, because they don't have money! They were lazy and didn't follow the system! ...right?
Think about that balloon. Every time I sit by Silver Lake in my hometown and watch the geese, I feel my balloon fills a little bit. When I work a shift at the restaurant that is my second home with coworkers I could call family...yeah, my balloon fills a little then too. Getting a bunny as my own first pet in college. The cafe's daily soup today being my favorite (which is broccoli cheddar, by the way). Coming across your favorite movie on television (yeah, you own it and have seen it 47 times but it's so much better when it's on tv!). Going to a musical with your mom. These are all little things that, well yes, fill my balloon...make me happy. It's things like missing my brother's trombone solo because I'm three and a half hours away at school that let the air out. Receiving a disheartening 56% on an exam that I studied for, dammit! Not being able to say goodbye to a beloved childhood pet while away at college, contemplating why I'm even here in the first place. Not exactly the kind of things that can keep your balloon afloat, are they?
I'm not suggesting that we never make sacrifices to lead a truly happy life. No, I'm quite sure there is a time and place and necessity for sacrifice. What I am suggesting is that if we are going to make the sacrifices, they should be for the things that matter, the things that might later fill that darn balloon I keep talking about. I'm attending college because hey, "It's what you do if you want to be somebody in life!" and "You need to go to college, you can't just not go." It's the system. Everyone gets homesick once and a while...it's all a part of growing up...everyone goes through it...yeah, I've heard it all. And every single time I do, I become convinced that this nifty little system? Not for me. Not so much. The system herds people in the same direction, with the same goal. Clones of one another. And I have no desire to be someone else.
I do not give up. Don't assume those people that didn't go to college just gave up. It's not about the system. It's about finding what truly makes you happy in life, and doing it. I know it sounds like one of those inspirational posters...and yes the queasiness accompanying that thought may be the signal that it's time for this post to end. But I'd rather spend the rest of my life in my hometown, working as a waitress, surrounded by friendship and love, with a bunny for a pet...than beat myself up over graduating with a piece of paper that means I'm supposedly better than someone else when I didn't even have any desire or confidence in choosing that path in the first place.
I'd rather live in love and the present...simply making paper veils and sand cakes, surrounded by floating balloons.
