“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

That, according to Charles Dickens in A Tale of Two Cities, explains the dilemma we humans face as we try to make sense of the confusion that we call life. Or better yet, how to comprehend just exactly what is happening to those of you who stand on the brink of graduating from Lewisville High School.

I’d like to believe that I am joining your ranks because retiring after 38 years at LHS feels an awful lot like graduating — except I’ve taken longer to reach the end.

I think The Beatles had a different way to put it, when they wailed “You say goodbye, and I say hello. Hello, hello! I don’t know why you say goodbye. I say hello.” So, Seniors, here’s the problem that you (and I) face right now at this moment: are you saying hello or goodbye, and is it the best or worst of times?

Let me throw in one more take on this conundrum, this one presented by Will Shakespeare’s Lost Boy, Hamlet: “Nothing is either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” And here’s the trick to these juxtapositions that I’ve offered. We are the ones who get to say what is what. No really, that cloudy day sets the stage for a rainy week, but it also lessens the blinding glare. How you look at what the world offers you is a choice that you make every day, every moment. Don’t ever let anyone start to make those choices for you.

So I choose to see it as “the best,” as “hello,” and plan to think it so.

What good comes from seeing “the worst” and saying  “goodbye”? Well, apparently, if you look at the entire view, good can come from bad and saying “goodbye” offers you moments to now say “hello.” We just have to know that all perspectives have valuable lessons to teach us, and whether you want to think of this right now, or not, you will go on learning even after you have left high school or college. Get ready for new ideas to come flooding towards you as you try to pick your way through a field of possibilities.

When you look back at your time here, and cringe at the memory of your worst moment, I’m pretty sure that you have learned how not to repeat that mistake. When you recall a time that you should have taken a moment before you ended the possibility of a friendship, I hope that you now know how to move past that error in judgement and towards the realization of a new beginning.

So whatever you are feeling right now, learn from it and move on. Say “hello” and “goodbye.” Know that the best will walk hand in hand with the worst. Get ready for that stately walk that goes with graduation. You’ve earned it.

Full disclosure: I could re-read Hamlet every year for the rest of my life, listen to The Beatles happily every day, but wouldn’t think the world was missing anything if Charles Dickens hadn’t ever written one line, much less one book. OK — “the best and worst” line is pretty good, but it doesn’t make up for the rest of the never-ending implausible dreck that some English teachers revere. Count me out of the Dickens fan club!  Does that excommunicate me from the English Teachers Club? So be it!  I’m out of here! AND SO ARE YOU!

Editor’s note: Karen Cooke has taught English at LHS since 1978. She was selected as the school’s teacher of the year in 2010-11. She is retiring at the end of the school year and has provided commentary on her final year of teaching at LHS as well as reflections on her career in this series of columns.