The Importance of Celebrating Milestones

Today we celebrate a milestone as our daughter finishes sixth grade.

The room was filled with parents, grandparents and siblings clapping, snapping pictures, and wiping tears.

Teachers honored and praised their students with medals, certificates and hugs.

It was the big exhale after many years and months of hurry, rush, finish, go, do.

CELEBRATIONS HONOR THE SPACE IN-BETWEEN Honoring the space between an ending and a new beginning is supportive and rejuvenating.  Seeing those kids beam with joy at being acknowledged for their achievements was like watching a flower bloom in time lapse. A memory to last a lifetime.

CELEBRATING MILESTONES SETS ASIDE TIME FOR REFLECTION I was struck today by how it’s nearly impossible to find time to celebrate our milestones as adults. As if once the degrees are completed, celebration becomes frivolous to some extent, we don’t have time or we didn’t solve world hunger so we don’t deserve the celebration.

Is there a celebration that you’ve overlooked because you considered the milestone to be insignificant? Well, put on your party cap because now is the time to celebrate!

CELEBRATIONS GIVE US STRENGTH FOR THE NEXT SET OF CHALLENGES Last week I took Rue to her new Jr. High to drop off some paperwork. I wanted her to take the paperwork to the office and experience walking down the hall with her peers, without me. I didn’t tell her this. I just handed her the papers and said, “Here, take these to the office.”

She returned to the car with a frown and said, “All those teenagers were staring at me, wondering what I was doing there!”

I assured her that her fears were magnified by her own judgments. This comment was met with an over-exaggerated eye roll, which reminded me that when it comes to marking the end, the one that ends with a senior graduating from high school, we’re only half way there. For the next big exhale, we’ve still got a long way to go.

I’m in no rush.