Recycling

I’m sorting through all the stuff we collected while Daughter Two conducted her college search and application process. It’s funny how this stuff held our daughter, my wife and me rapt just a few months ago. Now, none of it elicits any reaction other than a slight shiver when I recall all the work and worry that went into supporting her decision process.

Washington and Lee University is a beautiful place and a good college and offered her a full ride plus stipend. It also turned out to be a place – according to the current students- where there’s little to do in the evening but study or go to drinking parties. And lots of pearls and popped collars.  Just months ago we held our breath waiting to hear from W&L but now, into the basket it goes.

WA State is a good school but didn’t offer much money and even current scholarships are falling to the state’s budget cuts.

Rose Hulman is one of the top engineering schools in the country and she loved the time she spent there during a summer program. But it’s in Terra Haute, not really a place where she’d want to live for four years. And it’s straight engineering without much liberal arts breadth to speak of.

Harvey Mudd is also a great school, as is Lehigh. The both made it into the final three. But they just couldn’t unseat MIT.

Daughter Two spent four days and three nights at MIT and within the first few hours, she knew these were her people. This was the place she wanted to live for four years and these were the people with whom she wanted to live and learn and grow.

And we agreed. The excitement she conveyed made it the winner, hands down.

She applied to thirteen colleges, was accepted to eleven, and gathered information on dozens of others. We collected two file drawers of brochures, letters, and internet printouts. We spent uncounted hours (especially Daughter Two)  poring over web sites, messaging with current and past students, making lists and more lists.

I would have thought it would be difficult to let go of all this stuff but now that the time has come, I find it liberating, emptying file folder after file folder into the recycle basket. Some few pages containing personal information are shunted aside into a separate pile but even those will soon be fed into the shredder’s maw.

I’m discarding the physical evidence of a lot of effort and concern by three of us over the course of about eighteen months. And I don’t regret so much as a single flick of the paper-recycling wrist.

As I’ve said before and will say again, life is good. And this is one of the good days.