Young and full of promise

Those are the words I'd use to describe the teens I've talked to lately: young and full of promise.

Tonight, I drove 90 minutes to Mankato to have dinner with a high school girl. She picked Perkins because (1) that's where high school students go, (2) they have vegetarian options, and (3) she thoughtfully knew it was on the north side of town, on the highway I would be taking, and in a spot where I wouldn't get lost. Little did she know that it also was three blocks from the brewery my husb has been wanting to visit. So, he rode down with me and drank beer while I was at Perkins.

Anyhow, this girl. She maybe wants to go to the college I went to my first three semesters. And she maybe wants to go to law school afterwards and work on policy issues for an NGO. I met her dad on the MS TRAM bike ride this summer and he told me all this in a 30-mile stretch. How could I not talk to her when he asked for my number for this purpose?

She was cute, smart, sorta nerdy, and confident, and her favorite food is cereal. (She ordered the veggie skillet.)

I don't know if anything I said mattered or helped. She did lament that she isn't fully sure what she wants to do. I tried to say something along the lines of, "It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves." (The Internet says that's from Shakespeare.) Instead I said something way less lofty and sort of dumb, like, "You'll follow the path you need to be on," or "You'll take the path that's right for you."

The point was, it is okay to have a plan, but plans change and life happens and it gets sorted out. Just like a bike ride. I think that's what Shakespeare intended to say.