As a bird that flies south may not know why it’s doing it, I often find myself on a plane to SMU in Dallas this time of year.
About a decade ago, I started a tradition for the seniors in the same fraternity house from my college days -- at my daughters’ campus.
“Senior Night” has evolved into a yearly tradition where about 50 seniors and their dads have a dressed-up dinner a few days before the university’s graduation.
Every year, it’s the same rhythm. A quiet, elegant room in a private dinner club. Each senior stands up during dinner and makes a toast to who they were, who they are, and where they’re going.
For many of the seniors and dads, it’s very emotional. Many express things in that moment they may have never said to their friends – or to their dad.
In the ‘cool down’ drink after the event, a senior thanked me for ‘mc-ing’ this event -- and asked a simple question, “You don’t have a son in this fraternity, and you fly down here to do this for a bunch of strangers? How come?”
I’m sure I said something brilliant like, “Because you guys are the greatest,” with an idiot grin on my face and gave him the fraternity ‘grip.’
So here I am, sitting on the plane heading back to California, thinking about what the answer should have been.
I think I go there to fill a bit of a hole in my soul.
When I graduated from U. of Kentucky, I had no interest in sitting on the 36 yard-line with 6,765 other graduates in rented costumes listening to somebody I never heard of yakking about how I should reach for my dreams.
So, a couple days earlier, I just hopped in my puke-green, rusty-old Mazda GLC with a zillion miles and memories…
And drove away.
I drove away from the home of so many incredible buddies that shared a rich, wild, and full ride of college life.
I drove away from a girlfriend that taught me about how spectacular it is to love someone, and for someone to love you back.
I drove away from a place that was a bottomless treasure chest of learning that ripped open my mind to the wonders of science, literature, and the arts.
The gears were shifting down as I went from shoving my life in that clunker car, to backing out of my fraternity house driveway, to passing my university out the car window – to smelling and tasting and hearing the green grass whistling in the wind under the white picket fences of my old Kentucky home horse farms.
As the farms disappeared and as I merged onto the highway -- it emotionally hit me.
I didn't know why I was so overcome, but I knew something was profoundly shifting in my journey.
By the time I drove into my hometown eight hours later in La Grange, Illinois, I had cut the umbilical cord from my childhood -- and found myself being swept up in the air of an artic stream that would carry me to my adventure in California.
Back to the answer to the question the kid asked me.
I suppose it's because I didn’t have a definitive moment to let go of my college relationships, and I hoped this event would provide that for these young men and their dads.
I do think there’s value in definitively letting go of things; forcing you to stretch out for new branches and see if they can support you – when, often times, you don't even know those branches were there.
I suppose it’s because I believe saying goodbye to places, and people, and experiences are nature’s first steps, mortality’s baby steps, to subtly prepare us for ultimately saying goodbye to life.
First steps to letting go of this amazing, complicated, fun, painful, exciting, rewarding roller coaster of life we’re so incredibly lucky and blessed to ride.
If we take the time to recognize endings along the way, and if we’re willing to emotionally digest the fragility, pain, and humility in these moments -- maybe we're tasting truths about who we were, who we are, and where we think we're going.
My feeling is that no matter what you’re saying goodbye to – whether it’s an important relationship, an important chapter in your life, or to a tie that's had its days – on some level, we’re yanked out of the race of the day to appreciate how nice the trip has been.
When we say goodbye to a tie, we're not saying goodbye to the tie.
But to who we were when we wore it.
It reminds me of standing on the bridge in Monet’s backyard in Giverny, France. I had read about his perspective on what he tried to draw.
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He was fascinated with how the rays of light between our eyes and an image is what we actually ‘see’ – and how what we see has little to do with what the image actually is.
He painted the same images over and over again, because he wasn’t painting the image – he was painting the rays of light in that magical space.
I supposed we do that naturally, when we look at old college pictures, or ties – or urns.
Maybe that’s what I should have told the kid.
That I’m trying to draw rays of light.
Those kaleidoscopic, evocative, wondrous rays of light.
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Yours,
Jimmy Dunne
Jimmy Dunne is modern-day Renaissance Man; a hit songwriter of 28 million hit records, writer and producer of hit television series’, award-winning book author, an entrepreneur—and his town’s “Citizen of the Year.” You can reach him at j@jimmydunne.com.
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Lovely essay! Thank you Jimmy.
You most definitely have drawn the light. You are a beacon of positivity. Thank you!