DISCLAIMER: Not that I have any readers from Holy Family younger than me, but if you are from HF and have not attended Kairos yet, please don’t read this.
I already did a blog post about my year 2010 wrapping it up and reflecting on the year as a whole. But I want to reflect again. Today two years ago, I was on my first Kairos experience. And one year ago, I was on Kairos as a leader.
For most of my readers who are unfamiliar with Kairos, let me give you a quick run down of what it is. Kairos is a religious retreat that many schools put on. At Holy Family, traditionally seniors would attend Kairos, with a select few juniors who went in the spring of junior year. Kairos is more than just a retreat though. It really changes lives. I’m not really sure what it is about Kairos that can make even the most skeptical kids break down to all their raw feelings, but it does, and that is why it is so powerful.
On Kairos there are ten “talks.” These talks are speeches around a basic theme given by each of the six student and four adult leaders. Last year I gave a talk about values.
I can’t believe that one year ago I was sitting in the beautiful Colorado mountains with a group of people I barely knew, on a mission to change their lives and experience the magic of Kairos. Now here I am, sitting in my dorm room in Boston experiencing the thrill and exhilaration of college.
I reread my Kairos talk recently to see just who I was and what was important to me one year ago. The change in me is undeniably remarkable. As a self-study, the things I included in the talk (and the things I remember consciously leaving out) intrigued me.
Only those people I shared Kairos with and a few close friends have read or heard my talk. I hope those people know what a true gift they have, because what I put in that talk is not something I share with everyone. The talk was “me” in words. I was exposed right down to the emotions and thoughts that made me who I was then.
The best thing about looking back and reading my talk was seeing what was important to me at the time. Everyone used to tell me that ten years after high school no one would care who was class president, who got what superlative in the yearbook or who gave the speech at graduation. What I know now is that they lied. No one cares about that even ten months after high school.
My talk addressed the devastation I felt when I didn’t get into Northwestern, the relationships I have with my best friends and my parents and the obstacle I overcame when I didn’t win class president, among other things.
The truth is that everything has changed. Most of the things I wrote about don’t matter anymore. I still love my parents and best friends, but to say our relationships haven’t changed would be naïve. Both obstacles I faced in student council and not getting into Northwestern shaped who I became last year, but now I can simply call them hurdles I cleared, and in hindsight they don’t look so big.
The most interesting thing I stated in my talk was “I don’t have any idea where I’ll be a year from now, but I’m ok with that because I trust it is exactly where I am supposed to be.”
Well, here I am, and that is the absolute truth. I really do feel I am where I am supposed to be now. But the crazy thing is I can still say that.
There is something about being in this formative stage of life that is scary and uncertain. I really don’t know where I’ll be next year, what I’ll be doing, where I’ll be living and who I will be. But it is safe to bet, it will be very different from who I am in this very moment.
I’m glad I have my Kairos talk as a time capsule of who I was as a senior in high school. It is a good way to track my progress as I grow into a young adult.
And now I have this blog to archive my first year in college. Thanks for reading this much this time around. I hope you enjoyed my reflections.
P.S. Happy St. Patrick’s Day! The best holiday of the year. ;)
The Kairos leaders of Kairos 32 on Mar. 16, 2010.
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