Innocence and the Age of Possibility

We are walking through a picturesque university campus, one of the many we have visited on this week-long tour. As we make our way through hordes of incoming freshman, I see this one student move his eyes up and down my daughter’s body, checking her out. She is busy retrieving directions on her phone to the local ice cream shop. She never even notices.
I am glad for that. Not because I am an overprotective mother, though perhaps I am. What I am glad for, what I relish, is her lack of self awareness. In this moment, she is focused only on getting where she needs to go and having fun, blissfully unconcerned with impressing or attracting the people around her. On this sun-dappled college green with her hair carelessly knotted atop her head and her glasses giving her a wide-eyed and studious beauty, I see an innocence in her and I treasure it. I want to wrap it up and tuck it in her suitcase when she goes off next year to whatever school she chooses.
Innocence is such a fragile thing, so easily broken, so quickly lost, so carelessly tossed aside. We undervalue our innocence, so anxious are we to grow up and take on the mantle of sophistication. Cynicism seems to be intricately tangled up in our acquisition of knowledge. We don’t even recognize that we are innocent as we vigorously pretend to be unimpressed with the world, until one day we actually are. And that’s when we find ourselves, decades on, wandering a college campus with our little girl, and we no longer remember when or how our eyes became so narrow. We barely recall that feeling of innocence — how can we be conscious of being unselfconscious?
Make no mistake, my daughter is exceedingly mature, responsible, and careful. And I am hardly so naive as to think that she has not lost some of her innocence already. But, in countless ways, she is very much a child. She loves her Disney soundtracks and princess movies. She regrets giving away her Barbies and has tucked her American Girl Dolls neatly in storage, unable to bear the thought of parting with them. She still adores Winnie the Pooh.
Yet, that is not what makes her innocent. Rather, it is how she looks ahead to a world of possibility with endless opportunities and time to spare. At 16, the road to her boundless future is unfolding before her. As we meander through dormitories and dining halls, student unions and lecture halls, I can see the mental pictures forming as she envisions herself in each different place. She is taking the first tentative steps on a journey to discover where she belongs, which tribe is hers, which school feels like home. As she tries on new identities to see which one fits best, she will learn not only who she is but who she wants to be.
This process will not end when she plops her backpack onto the bed of her dorm room freshman year. She will continue test driving aspects of her personality until it all feels comfortable and right. Anywhere she lands can become home. These students she does not yet know can become her family The school she chooses will change her, shape her, as she presses herself into a new mold. When she tosses her cap into the air five years from now, she will have gained a better understanding of herself and the world around her. But, more than likely, she will have lost something in the process.
At this age, the choices still lie ahead of her. She has doors opening in every direction and has only to select which knob to turn. Big school, small school, commuter school? Greek life, sports teams, academic clubs? It is up to her to decide what she wants — no one can do that for her. And with each decision, a set of options will fall away. When one door opens, a thousand will close behind her.
At least, that was how I saw it at the start of our journey.
Every larger-than-life sign declaring our entrance onto university grounds felt like a passage to some alternate future for my daughter. And every time, I felt a welling nostalgia for my own college days, both the doors I joyfully flung open and the ones I left unexplored.
Granted, college now is nothing like it was thirty something years ago. Today’s typical higher education institute apparently includes on-site therapy dogs, complimentary massages at exam time, award winning chefs, quidditch matches, and gender inclusive dormitories. This was not my experience in the 1980s. Then again, neither was a six-figure student debt.
No doubt, my parents also believed that I had more privileges and luxuries than they’d had thirty years prior — and likely they were right. But, what I cherish most about those years was not the amenities. What I remember most vividly, what still thrills me when I walk through a college town, is the magic and adventure of those early days when everything was new, everyone was interesting, and nothing was to be left undiscovered. I was hungry to learn and experiment, and I did both in full measure as the days stretched out into weeks, months, and eventually a four-year degree.
Those years were so rich with inner growth it was visible — in how I walked and dressed and expressed myself. There was so much to experience and I said yes to everything. Music I had never heard, books I had never read, people from parts of the world I had never known existed. So many courses to be taken, jobs to be had, parties to be invited to or crashed. I would be a writer, a philosopher, a public defender, a diplomat, a singer, a traveler, or maybe I would just keep studying. I look back on the choices I made, the options I considered and set aside. Some I thought I would return to and never did. Some were better left behind.
Thirty something years later, I swim in this sea of youth with my daughter, feeling perfectly at ease, until I pass my reflection in a mirror — or my daughter reminds me that I am “such a mom” — and I realize I am no longer their peer. I stopped saying yes to everything years ago. And as I narrowed down my options, my life became defined by the familiar, the routine, the structured. I opened a lot of doors but locked a thousand others. At least, I believed I had.
With decades of life lessons behind me, I am no longer innocent. But as I contemplate my daughter’s future, I realize with encouragement that in a world so full of mystery, I have almost as much to learn as she does. We both have a world of possibility before us.
I consider the empty nest that awaits me next fall and it occurs to me that I can live anywhere. No need to worry about the school system or neighborhood playgrounds. Unencumbered by family responsibility, I can downsize, go abroad, switch careers. The doors I thought I had sealed were actually left ajar, just waiting for the right time to be revisited.
Some friends I visited on this college tour, as advanced in years as I (or more so) are thinking about their next steps, as well, and the many paths that lie ahead. At this age, the horizon is drawing nearer and we see how little time we have left to do all those things we set by the side of the road “for later.” We rethink our choices and reimagine ourselves. Retirement, empty nests, career transitions — these are all catalysts for recreating our lives. We are ready, again, for change.
When I was laid off last year, a new professional path unfurled before me, but now I see even more options ahead. When I was raising children, I wanted only to settle in one place, to make and maintain a home, to nurture stability and consistency. Now I want risk again, unpredictability, and life outside my own four walls. Nature and hormones have a funny way of telling us where we belong and when we need to relocate.
As my daughter frets over these life decisions, I remind her of how impermanent most of them really are and how easily she can change course if she keeps her eyes and her mind open. And as she practices with various personalities to figure out who she is, I too am on the lookout for new opportunities. I open my mind, adjust my vision, and look ahead. I know who I am, as she does, too, somewhere inside. But how do I want to spend my remaining days? Traveling? Teaching? Studying? And where should I spend them? A condo on the Potomac? A village in Africa? A beach house in Southern California?
The answer is easy. I can do anything I decide to do and belong anywhere I choose to go — just like my daughter. Perhaps between us, over time, we can do everything in turn.
As long as we have therapy dogs and massages.
