It’s 5 AM on a Saturday and I’m awake. Not for a workout or a run or a writing session, but for graduation.

Not mine, but that of a bunch of kids I didn’t know until a year ago.

So, I’m gonna go out there, hope the rain holds off, give them a handshake or a hug (as they like it) and see these kids one more time before I probably never see them again. Try not to cry. (That won’t be hard. My heart is a dessicated lump of fossilized bone.) Try not to make them cry. (Just kidding. It’s fun making graduates cry. Easy, even. Kind of a game I play. They’re already dizzy with emotion, all you have to do is hit them with an “I’ll miss you so much” or “I don’t know how this school will be the same without you” and you get a flood, easy.)

Watch and ruminate as they step over the threshold into the rest of their lives.

And then, maybe, come back to the house and throw something on the grill, having taken no such step myself. (Assuming the weather holds off.)

Teaching is weird.

This post is part of Stream of Consciousness Saturday.