Taking Flight

Two arms circled my waist and hoisted me nearly a foot in the air. Things look ever so slightly different from 6'5", and some detached section of my subconscious noted new angles and different shadows while I hung suspended, weightless for an instant. Then gravity reclaimed me, as my little brother set me down on the newly-purchased beige rug that covered his dorm room floor. "I'll miss you, my sister," he stated simply before turning toward our father.

After a summer of anticipation, Ian moved to college today.

On one level, his departure is an escape. Growing up in a small town is simultaneously liberating and confining. As you mature, you create a specific niche, and it's a perfect fit since it exists because of you. Take Ian: class president, decent hurdler, lovely singer - a bass. After a while, you don't have to work at defining exactly who you are; everyone already knows. But you become weighed down by the image you have created, by the boundaries of your niche. Throughout the summer, Ian was impatient for this day to arrive. I listened as he waxed poetic with countless variations on the ever-popular topic, "I can't wait for college." He was ready to go to school, excited for new experiences, and I know some of that excitement was based on the knowledge that when today arrived, he could flee from the pressure of constant examination. Anonymity can be a welcome refuge.

I suspect, though, that the majority of Ian's excitement came not because he took flight from Sleepy Eye but because he moved into an entirely unpredictable future. As of today, he is free to consciously create a niche instead of growing into one. Maybe some of the same elements will remain; I'm fairly sure he'll still be a bass when he comes home for Thanksgiving. And maybe it won't be a perfect fit; he'll have to decide which characteristics he wants to keep and which he has to leave behind. But I know he'll learn that having the liberty to choose makes you feel like you are soaring. So this flight is more about embracing freedom than it is about running away. It's about moving out from under the heft of the past. It's about not being afraid to lose track of gravity, to become weightless.

To my brother: enjoy the flight.