it's that time of year...

Not Christmas. Or summer. Well, it is spring but I'm not really referring to a season of the year. I'm finding myself thinking "it's that time of year" every day when I'm at work and I'm reminded that mid-March to mid-April is both a wonderful and difficult time at work when your life revolves around seniors in high school.
I know that some of you are thinking that "difficult" might describe all time spent with teenagers, but I'm lucky and I think that most of my time spent with them is "wonderful". And this time of the year is no exception, except that it usually pulls at my heartstrings in a different way than an ordinary day does.
You see, it's that time of year when seniors at St. Andrew's and around the country (and globe) are waiting to hear back from colleges to which they've applied. Odd as it may sound, I don't think that college is the end-all, be-all in life. I don't even think it's "right" for some students, even some of our students...or at least not right now. And I've lived just long enough to know that an "admission ticket" to college is only that - an admission ticket to college, not an admission ticket to lifelong happiness or a dream job or a your ideal mate or a life full of meaning or passion. In fact, I know an ever-growing list of people, some who are both acquaintances and others who are close friends, who have incredible lives - lives that I admire and even envy - who hold no college degree. That being said, I believe in the value of education and of the opportunities that can come from it both when you're in school and out of school. So I continue to be passionate about college counseling or at least continuing education.
But this time of year calls me to be more of a counselor than a college counselor. Students come into my office looking as if they've just lost their best friend when/if their dreams of attending school "x" have just been dashed by a single email/online message/admissions office letter. We hold their sadness together. The frustration and the questions of "why?" or "why not?" are so real you can touch them. And I don't have the answers. Well, I do, but they are rarely helpful in the very present. I trust they provide some comfort down the road...be it a few days, weeks, months, or even years later. But in that very moment when a dream moves even farther away from becoming a reality, my words provide little comfort.
Of course, in the very timely way that newspapers print articles, there was a great one in the Wall Street Journal this week about college rejections and how they had affected some pretty famous people...in a positive way, of course. It's not that it says anything that's terribly new; it's just that it came out at just the right time. For seniors. For their parents. For me.
Because it's the reminder that everything that we experience in life happens for a reason - both the good and the bad. That how we react to things is far more important than what actually happens to us. That there are any number of places, ways, people, relationships, jobs, events, etc... that can help to fill the empty spots of our lives with meaning. That life really doesn't usually work out exactly like you thought it would, and that's okay. Perhaps even better. It makes us more flexible, more creative, more empathetic to others pain and disappointment, more determined, and more resilient. And, you know, I think in the long run, those lessons are far more important than any lesson in any college classroom around the country. And if my students didn't get into any college that they really longed to go to but "passed" those lessons of life, they would get an A+ in my book.