Writing our own stories ...

Rachael Abernethy graduated from high school in 2012, an experience she describes in glowing terms. In the protected and nurturing environment of the independent school world, she settled into her identity under the watchful eyes of a supportive family, good friends, and trusted teachers. For Rachael, the experience of high school felt like being a valued member in an extended family.

And then she went to college -- and that’s what she writes about here. It’s not that things went off the rails or anything. She had a great experience playing soccer and being a Black Studies major at Amherst College. It’s just that she suddenly found that she had to figure out how to deal with the one thing that so many young people dream about: freedom.

After graduating from Amherst, Rachael took a fellowship at Northfield Mount Hermon as a member of the UPenn Boarding School Residency Program. Eventually, she picked up a Master’s of Science in education and got herself hired as a full-time faculty member at the school. I never taught Rachael at Parker, but now that she is a fellow English teacher, we swap stories and ideas on a regular basis.

Rachael writes about dealing with the sudden sense of freedom that comes with the college experience, but she is also interested in the mysterious and wonderful ways that we benefit from all of the many hands that lift us and guide us in our journeys toward independence. “Life gives us plenty of time to make choices,” she said. “These choices reflect who we are and when in doubt about the future or the next choice to make, remember the structures in place from your family, friends and Parker. Their existence proves that we never truly have to make decisions or go through life alone.”

- C.H.

I loved college. I knew I would and I looked forward to it, but as my mom and grandparents drove me to the freshman quad, a tear rolled down my cheek and then I started uncontrollably sobbing. Weird! I like to think of myself as a super independent person, unafraid to take the path less traveled and unapologetically driven by her colorful intuition, but I guess that’s not totally true.

I’m not sure how much sense there is to make of the moment in the back of my grandparents’ SUV, but I can tell you that it felt really, really good. I hadn’t realized until I let it go how heavy my cool, calm facade of confidence had been. I was newly 18! I had barely started driving, I had one or two anticlimactic relationships, I had never spent more than a month away from home, I had no ability to hang on to a pair of sunglasses, earrings, my phone, or wallet for an extended time without losing them, and still felt guilty about not having told my mom about the time I had tried a little weed with friends a few weeks before. To be honest, I was thinking more strategy than fun: I wanted to get some initial data about the experience before going to college (this was a really good decision for me), but I felt very young to suddenly have the responsibility of making all decisions by myself for the rest of my life.

Even though they agitated me, my parents’ structures and rules helped me feel sure about who I was and what I was supposed to do. I never wanted to try my mother too hard. If you were to ask them, I know my parents would say that I pushed them plenty, but all within the bounds. I had amazing friends who supported me in being smart and safe. But back in the SUV, I realized that I was voluntarily driving 3,000 miles away from all of that. I would have to replicate the safety and security of my home in foreign New England. The thought forced my stomach upside down. Wait. This is what I wanted, right? A chance to grow and define myself by my own terms? Figure out who I want to be? Make my own rules?

The freedom overtook me. I could finally do whatever I wanted! I could enjoy the smaller things in life, like leaving the dishes until morning, staying out until the end of the night, or the bigger things, like choosing to spend more money on travel than on things. Maybe my laundry could wait a week or two and no one would remind me that the pile was getting too big. These were my short term goals-- easily tangible and wonderfully satisfying. I thought this (plus taxes) is what I would have to do to be an adult and do this thing called life. But one quick scan in the self-help section of any bookstore and a long series of lectures and study later, I saw that adults often fake it ‘til they make it. These ideas about who we are, who we want to be and what rules we should follow are not just for writing assignments, teenagers, or even the college essay. They are in fact perennial and frustrating to answer. When I sat in the SUV, taking them on by myself felt like a lot.

Once I stopped crying, my family helped me set up my room, I met my roommate, had a meal, took a bajillion pictures, gave the last hug over and over again, and found some friends. We grew together from exchanging the experiences of our lives. I learned that hearing and reading stories could give me a solid stab at understanding other people in ways that helped me better know myself. I did not have to experience the struggles of one character to know that I did not want to make his choices in life. Authors played out different scenarios for me to imagine and emulate or dismiss. Narratives became a structure for me to use as a guide for my choices, and once I found my canon, black feminist authors became my role models (I’m thinking Audre Lorde and her hint to celebrate creative differences). Of course, I did not have to bear the weight of what it means to do this thing called life by myself.

And the structure that my parents gave me never disappeared. Funny enough, it pops up at the most inconvenient or unexpected times, like when my fiancé and I cannot settle on where the towels should hang or how the dishes should be washed. We each think the way we did it back home is the right way. But neither of us is wrong. And when our structures align and we decide to travel or rewatch “The Office” or prioritize our family, fight for our friends, dance like fools, share our love or adopt a dog, we are deciding to act on what we’ve learned to value most.

The greatest lesson I’ve learned from going to college, meeting new friends, traveling, loving and reading lots is that the world is not split into binaries or easy answers; we must make sense of multiple truths. As J.K. Rowling described via Sirius Black, “The world isn’t split into good people and Death Eaters. We’ve all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That’s who we really are.” Life gives us chance after chance to choose who we intend to be and which structures we intend to follow.

Today, I see that my students do not sense the impact their choices make on themselves and each other. They think adults have the power to choose everything and that once they get to that station in life, they’ll start to make the decisions that really count. In the meantime, what they do doesn’t really matter. In the back of that SUV, I thought the same. I would have liked to remember that I had already made innumerable decisions in my 18 years--acting on my light, my dark and parts in between--that brought me to the moment at present. I can tell you from the other side of Parker and college that the decisions I made then inform who I am now, but they do not entirely define me. And that’s because we get to choose the stories we tell.