A C H A P E L TA L K
by Myles Maxson ’18 October 19, 2017
The Step
in Front of You Backpacking on the John Muir Trail in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains
I
despise change. Actually, that’s not fair, let me try and put this in perspective for you. I hate change with the same burning passion Red Sox fans feel towards Yankee fans, or the rest of the world feels towards the New England Patriots. When I was little I would cry when the sun went down. I would cry when I flushed the toilet. I would cry whenever my parents had to leave the house. It wasn’t just that I was a particularly agitated baby, but rather I hated the idea of anyone or anything having to leave. I lived in the same home, in the same town, with the same friends, until I was 14. School had always been easy for me. I had attended the same Kentucky public school all my life, slowly climbing the ladder from obscurity to the top rung in eighth grade. I had the same set of friends since kindergarten and never had to study for a test in my life. Groton began as a daydream, a fanciful “what if ” to occupy my time in math class. I didn’t think I was going to get in and my family wasn’t sure how we would afford it. However, thanks to what can only be attributed to sheer dumb luck, I, like all of you, got the big “YES!” at the top of my screen at 5:00 p.m. on a Monday afternoon. At first I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go; a change as big as this one represented everything I was afraid of. However, the opportunity for a Groton education,
34
Groton School Quarterly
•
Winter 2018
combined with a generous financial aid package from the school, made it too good an opportunity to pass up. To say ninth grade was a change would be a gross understatement. The shift from poor, rural Kentucky to the diversity and affluence of Groton was overwhelming. The friends I had had since I was six suddenly vanished, and I struggled to make new ones. My grades began a free fall and I didn’t know how to catch them. I managed to limp through the year, however, secure in the knowledge that being at Groton was my choice. No one was forcing me to be here, and if things ever got unbearable I could return home to the safety of what was familiar, what was easy. However, in the spring of my ninth grade year my parents dropped a bombshell on me. My dad had gotten a new job in North Carolina. We were moving at the end of the summer. Gone would be the only home I had ever known. Gone would be my friends and neighbors. Gone would be the safety and security my life in Kentucky had represented. No longer could I return to home if Groton ever became too tough. Groton was now the only option, and home was just as confusing and unknown as school had been. In addition, that summer my mom had planned a twoweek backpacking trip on the John Muir Trail in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. As soon as we returned from the trip we