Slice of Goodbyes

           I'm slicing with the Two Writing Teachers community today.

          Thinking of this school year ending and saying goodbye to students is both a celebration and a grief. Even as teachers are tired, and ready for rest, they still wish "just another week, another conversation, another book shared, another hug". I hoped good things for students at the year's end, for the summer near and the future far. And this year I am not saying goodbye, but still remembering the goodbyes. I thought those of you in the classroom would enjoy one of the poems I used and gave the students on the last day. It fits them, you, me--treasured words. 

As you journey through life,

      choose your destinations well,

      but do not hurry there.

      You will arrive soon enough.

      Wander the back roads and forgotten   

            paths,

      keeping your destination

      like the fixed point of a compass.

      Seek out new voices, strange sights,

      and ideas foreign to your own.

      Such things are

      riches for the soul.

      And if, upon arrival,

      you find that your destination

      is not exactly as you had dreamed,

      do not be disappointed.

      Think of all you would have missed

      but for the journey there.

      and know that the true worth

      of your travels lies not in where

      you come to be at journey’s end,

      but in who you come to be

      along the way.

     

            anonymous