the bittersweet end

I know I say this all the time, but it's MY blog and I'll get all nostalgic if I want to. I had my last meeting with my students in the personal essay course this morning and IT. WAS. SO. GOOD. Everybody read an excerpt from their long personal essay, and then we sat around and talked about what we each learned from the course. It was informal, and that's why I liked it. I didn't have to ASK anyone to talk. It just happened. And I could just cry I'm so damn proud of them.

I read them an excerpt from an essay I'm writing that explores the various reasons I don't want to have children, one of them being that as aware as I am of my own limitations and despite people always saying that this awareness would make me a BETTER mother, I know that so many of our motivations and so many of the effects of our actions can never really be known.

Case in point: Today Rachael told me that on her Facebook page, she has a quote from me. "Lord only knows how I'm fucking you guys up." I laughed out loud because I honestly don't remember saying it, but it certainly sounds like something I'd say. And I apparently said this during a different day's discussion of having children--or, rather, of NOT having children. So I made a little speech about the ways that so many of the things we say have lasting impressions on people and we don't even know it. The EFFECTS are more far-reaching than we can ever know.

I learned so much about myself, about the personal essay, and about how meaningful a class can be when it really works. I am so grateful.