Up the Hill, with Profound Determination

This is Reunion Weekend at my alma mater, Colgate University, and last night to celebrate its 70 years, the Colgate 13, Colgate’s male a cappella group, held a concert featuring Colgate 13 members from as far back as the class of ’44.

The class of ’44.  My father was of that age.  My father would have been 89 this year had he lived.  There on stage, streamed live (and available recorded at http://www.livestream.com/colgateuniversity/video?clipId=pla_7e403c48-f53d-4292-9cba-44db326b0ecb&utm_source=lslibrary&utm_medium=ui-thumb ) stood a 90-year-old man.  He needed help climbing the stairs, he could no longer carry a tune with strength, but he proudly stood there as if it was 70 years ago.

As I watched this concert, I remembered the feeling of sitting in the Colgate Chapel – countless times.  I rehearsed there as part of the Colgate University Chorus under Marietta Chang.  I took organ lessons there from Vivian Slater.  I attended orchestra concerts, listened to speakers, attended meetings, shared in services.  I used to pack up my homework – reading, writing, whatever – and sit in the balcony while the orchestra practiced.  The acoustics were incredible, and the music hung in the air, surrounding me and pulling me in and making me feel sacred.

Wasn’t that just a moment ago?  How did so much time pass so quickly?  I imagine those men, the Colgate 13 members of the 1940s and 50s, wondered the same thing.  So much life they had seen in such a fleeting moment.  It brought me to tears.  I couldn’t help asking myself:  how did I get so old?

I never thought I’d be where I am now.  As I sat in the chapel 30(+) years ago, did I think about where I would be now?  How could I have known all that would happen:  that I would marry two years out of college and watch that marriage fall to shreds 27 years later; that I would give birth to a son with a profound disability and spend the rest of my life in despair and frustration; that I would see two other children off to college and envision lives of plenty for them; that I would return to school to achieve a second career as a teacher – and who ever would have thought I’d end up as a special education teacher after all I had experienced personally?

I have to be fair; I can’t leave what I just wrote un-amended.  My marriage fell apart, but there were plenty of happy times.  My son has also brought me great joy and pride.  I don’t regret what I have now; I wouldn’t want to relive those years and make different decisions that would result in the non-existence of my three children.  But I would have done some things differently.

1.  I would have finished my thesis.  That still haunts me.  Which leads to…

2.  I would not have stopped writing.  It was the most intense and self-satisfying part of my life at one time.  I had dreams.  I had talent; other people saw it.  So why did I lose faith in that talent, and in myself, and why did I let it slip through my fingers?

3.  I would have spent money differently.  So much wasted.

4.  I would have become a teacher sooner.

5.  I would have admitted defeat and divorced my husband long before now, painful though it would have been.  But before then, I would have tried to play with him more.

6.  I would have gotten a firmer hand on my health issues at an earlier age.  What I have learned about myself in the past 10 years would have changed my life for the better had I discovered certain things while in my 20s.
7.  I would have figured how who I was before I let myself be who other people wanted, and needed, me to be.  And once I'd figured that out, I would have fought to preserve that person.

No, I won’t continue.  That is sufficient to say:  I could have done this life better.  And looking at those men standing on that stage, I remember that I still have a chunk of time to make it better.  I can’t undo what I’ve done; I can’t remake my life’s history.  But I can steer it the way I want to go now. I won’t declare myself a lost cause – that would be silly.  There’s still time for me to achieve what I think I imagined for myself as I sat in the chapel balcony.  And maybe I’ll just finish that thesis.