Auld Lang Syne

Before properly researching the meaning of this song (done just a few weeks ago), if you’d asked me to tell you what “Auld Lang Syne” was about I would have confidently, and incorrectly, summarized something about leaving the past behind and looking to the future. New year, new me, no regrets!

THIS IS TERRIBLY INACCURATE.

“Should old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind?

Should old acquaintance be forgot, and auld lang syne?”

The song is a tender and beautiful setting of a text by the Scottish poet Robert Burns. The question mark at the end of the second line is an indication that there is more to consider here. The answer? That it is “for old times’ sake” that we might pause with a friend, or perhaps with ourselves, to consider times and people past.

Nostalgia is a double edged sword. One side wounds and the other side protects. My mom passed away in July of 2021 so this was not my first Christmas without her. But it was different. I was sad in familiar ways but newly reminiscent and profoundly thankful in others. I heard “Auld Lang Syne” through a new filter and I liked to think I was having a visit with my mom each time I heard it.

This holiday season I welcomed and appreciated the nostalgia and memories of family, my childhood, and especially my mom. I recalled how lovely Christmas was growing up. I let in more light and love.

I saw the memories as warm reminders of these times and I took them in and sat with them, like old friends I might sit down to have a drink with. Who am I to deny the invitations of old friends?

All of this reminiscing led me to some reflection and thoughts on 23 years in the classroom.

The past three years have been challenging for all of us. Some of the challenge has been collective, some personal, some public, some private, each with impacts still rippling and unraveling. All of that has been true for me. I have wondered at many points if I should continue as a teacher, if it was worth it to stay, if I could still do my job effectively, if any of it still mattered. This period of time has been the closest I could come to saying I was having an existential crisis.

Well some how, some way, I stuck it out and some thing significant shifted for me just a few short weeks ago. I felt like my old self again as a teacher. I remembered how to do things I used to do before the pandemic. All the old tricks and tools were more easily at my disposal once more. What/when/where/why made more sense again. My teaching started to feel more connected, purposeful and genuine, aligning with a version of myself that seemed familiar, like an old acquaintance I’d forgotten. I spent the time before winter break feeling like things were POSSIBLE. That as a teacher, I was POSSIBLE.

There is a renewed hope and energy in what I am capable of, a reminder of what I used to do so well and that none of it is gone. I am at the doorstep of a figurative home I know very well and am so glad to be back.

My heart is full with gratitude for the time to connect all these dots. To sense how I’ve been feeling and to embrace the return of possibility. And the welcome belief that the band room is the place I continue to call my professional home.

Welcome back old acquaintances. You’ve been missed. Here is to doing it together, with each of you, in 2023!

“And there’s a hand my trusty friend. And give me a hand ‘o thine. And we’ll take a right goodwill draught, for auld lang syne.”

To all things possible in 2023…with gratitude,

Jon