LETTER TO MY 21-YEAR-OLD SELF FOR THIS WEEK.
Dear Peter,
Tonight, after a Japanese tutorial, you can go across to the Forgan-Smith Building and collect your mortarboard, hood and gown, and tomorrow night you get to wear them over a business shirt and pair of slacks that you got when you were 16, to do high school work experience, and you will be presented to the Vice Chancellor of the university, when the Dean of the Faculty of Arts calls your name and you are presented with your degree. You’re the only person who bows to the Vice Chancellor. This incident will be poignant for you as the Vice Chancellor has now passed away, and your friend, who attended your graduation has, too. The second was way too young.
You will feel a few things as you are presented with your degree. You have been doing some reading about the Showa Emperor, and when he renounced his divine status, he asked his wife if he was any different. You feel a little different, and you feel as though you have proven your critics and bullies from high school wrong. You have, but you will have cause to reflect upon what the Year Co-Ordinator said 8 years earlier, that those who fool around won’t be laughing when they’re digging ditches. You remember the smart Alec kid who told you that you could be a garbage truck driver, and you’re not better than the garbage truck driver, but that kid was putting you down. And don’t forget that that kid, on the last day of school, was driving like a lunatic in front of the school. You didn’t have your licence, but if you had, and you’d brought your parents’ car to school, you would have simply walked out to it, gotten into it and sedately driven away.
Three days after that, you will attend the first and only reunion of those who went to Japan with you three weeks earlier. You will see that something your parents said a few years earlier has a different context. Your brother was feeling conflicted about going to a party for the end of primary school, and your parents said, “Imagine if you’re this girl hosting it, and nobody turns up.” The woman who carried on has organized this dinner, and you’re the only person from your university to attend, and she says that she was having people ring up as late as 6pm, saying that they couldn’t attend the reunion. You weren’t all that keen, but you wanted to see your fellow attendees. You felt sorry for this woman, but what you’ll see even more clearly is that some of the others have received a better offer and that nobody from your group likes her. Some who come for dinner leave early.
When people tell you to grow up what you’ll later learn is that growing up is a gentle process and a process of accomplishing things and learning things. And you’re not immature, despite what others say. After all, you were always one of the youngest at school, and you were more sensible than some people who were a year older than you.
Yours Sincerely,
48-Year-Old Peter.