Another batch of recently graduated Rangeley students are finishing their summer jobs, depositing their final checks into their bank accounts, and taking the next step deeper into the grip of adulthood. Part of me wants to scream, “Stop! Don’t go! Stay young forever!” And a part of them wishes they could. But the bark of reality comes with a bite: Time marches on, with or without our consent. You’re either on the bus or off the bus, behind the steering wheel or along for the ride as an idle passenger.

Much of K-12 is explicitly designed (presumably) to prepare students for the “what’s next” in life. Here’s the thing, though. Nobody entirely knows what’s next. There are way too many unknowns. We continually present ourselves with an air of certainty, but that’s really nothing more than a social kabuki dance. You know that dance, the one where people appear as authorities armed with degrees and years of lived experience, performing elaborate rites of passage, as the kids speed along, until, after 18 years of existing on a conveyor belt, students are uniformly, and simultaneously, deemed “ready” for the “what’s next.” They march in wearing gowns and caps topped with tassels they flip upon receiving a piece of paper that confers their release from the school system’s care. And on this piece of paper it says, in Latin, “Good luck! What’s next?”

“Uh, next? You mean, like, I decide what’s next, like, with the rest of my life?” And, minus the guardrails and road signs, they are sent onto life’s congested highway unraveling before them. Burdened with choices, at times too many and other times not enough, they will feel daunted and overwhelmed, no longer on top of the heap in a class of 14, but, now, one of hundreds, or even thousands. They may curl up into a fetal position late at night, laying in bed unable to sleep, weighed down by the enormity of having to map their futures. A lifetime of decisions had been quietly made for them up to this point, without fanfare or notice: Bills were paid, food purchased and prepared, clothes laundered, and play dates made. They blithely took them for granted, occasionally thanking someone for something, but, still, not entirely aware of everything this life they’ve been living has entailed. They weren’t being crass and selfish. Au contraire. They were simply kids raised by people who, too, had been kids.

And now, without any pomp or fanfare, there will be no parade to herald their departure from town. There might be a mini-caravan of cars loaded with dorm-life essentials: bedding, a microwave, heaps of clothing, and a stuffed animal or two meant to ward off the inevitable homesick blues. A few loved ones will escort them on this leg of their journey into the “what’s next.” And they will cry as they hug one another goodbye; goodbye to what was and will not ever be again; goodbye to an innocence that is gone for good; goodbye to siblings who will grow while they are away; goodbye to dogs and cats and porch swings, and goodbye to parents they seem unable to let go of, wiping away the tears as the family car gradually grows smaller, arms waving wildly outside the car’s windows, disappearing down the road, the same road that will bring them back to a home that will be changed forever. That’s what’s next.

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