Redistricting

When it comes to change, I'm not a big fan. I understand it's inevitable. But I am always relieved when everyone understands that there is a time and place for spontaneity. I went to the elementary school down the street from my house. I walked there, just like my older brother did. Even though we managed not to have any of the same teachers, I took some comfort when someone at the school would say, "Oh, I remember your brother." I felt like a legacy.
That's how I felt when it came time to head up the hill to junior high. I was literally following in my brother's footsteps. This is where I found myself in a number of different classrooms where my brother had sat, same gym, same auditorium, same hallways. We might even have had the same locker at some point. Knowing that he had gone before and warmed it up for me took some of the fear out of seventh grade, in spite of all his admonitions about how terrifying it would be.
It was toward the end of that year that the school district announced that they would be changing the boundary for junior high enrollment. By moving that line just a little to the north, I found myself suddenly cast into the position of attending Casey Junior High. I was a Centennial Cyclone, not a Casey Cub. Never mind that my mother had once attended Casey, I had followed a rather fierce indoctrination against her alma mater spurred on almost entirely by my older brother. Leaving Centennial and all the familiarity with the facility and all my friends was unthinkable. My parents did me the solid of writing an exception letter that got me what I wanted: permission to finish out my junior high career as a Cyclone.
Meanwhile my younger brother, who had followed along in two older brothers' wake through that same elementary school,  was preparing for his seventh grade year. His friends were headed to Casey, and he didn't look back. His interest was in continuity with his peers more than clinging to some vague sense of tradition. His colors would be blue and white, instead of the green and white favored by his brothers. He didn't need any exception. He was ready to go.
For those three years, it never occurred to me what a trifle all of this was. Separated by just a couple miles, these two schools were no doubt capable of giving any of us virtually the same education, or my parents never would have allowed it to happen. Only now do I feel just a little embarrassed by the way my younger brother's willingness to roll with the changes that came his way while I dug in my heels and refused to alter my trajectory the tiniest bit. What made him so relaxed and flexible?
Maybe it comes from being the youngest. You get a chance to look at things coming down the lane just a little longer, making it easier not to flinch when the curves start to show up. Or maybe the difference between blue and green, hard and soft C, and junior highs in general weren't really that big a deal after all. Thank goodness we all ended up at Boulder High instead of Fairview.