No matter how much you try to prepare for it, the end of summer sneaks up on you like a cat in the dark and rubs its wet nose all over you when you just closed your eyes to blink. I have said for the past month that we are going to have to start preparing for school nights again; that we must trade in our unscheduled days and free flying nights for structure and schedules. I hate even typing that. Which is probably why every time I’ve thought it has been pretty much just a warning light in my head, one that I brush off, “till next week”.
I remember back to school nights with sheer terror. I hated them. In fact, my heart still palpitates when I think about the first day of school. Ugh. The pressure of being “enough” made the night before the first day of school a complete nightmare. After a shower, I would carefully go through all of the new clothes I’d acquired over the summer and especially on my birthday. Picking the perfect outfit, I’d set it out on a chair in my room. Shoes, pristine and ready to go, whatever school supplies I needed, packed into my new backpack, waiting to be picked up and carried off to the first day of whatever grade I was headed off into. I can still smell the freshly mowed grass wafting through the screen of my window and hear the locusts and frogs in the night. I lay at the “wrong end” of my bed, looking out that window and thinking about all the unknowns that tomorrow held inside. How I hate the unknown.
So why would I look forward to school starting now, as an adult? Sure, some would say that it will mean more time to be away from my kids, and to have time of “sanity”, but I truly don’t feel like that. I had to wait 13 years to actually conceive my children, so I really enjoy spending time with them – even when they are not at their most properly behaved – I truly love being present in their lives. So, when people ask me, “Are you ready for school to start?”, I’m a bit on the fence about it.
Yes, I want my kids to get an education; I want them to live their own lives (that’s about as much freedom as you get when you’re lower elementary aged); I want them to have time with their friends; I want them to learn to work with different kinds of people; and I want them to discover their gifts and talents and to that they can make a difference in their community; I want them to learn to function in society. So, yes, I want them to go back to school.
Even on days when my last nerve has been stepped on, and I feel like I might just join my kids in a tearful tantrum on the floor; I’m not ready to “get rid of them” or “ship them back” to school. I’m not looking forward to a new schedule, with both kids out of the house, even though I will be busy working. I’m not looking forward to rushed mornings, cold weather gear and long nights of activities and homework and trying to keep on schedule. I’m not looking forward to all the spending and the running and the things that seem to have become a benchmark for elementary education these days. (I don’t remember doing anything after school as an elementary kid until I took up band in the 6th grade). I’m not looking forward to my kids growing up right before my eyes, and another day passing by as evidence that it all goes by in a blink.
So, that’s my fence. That’s why I don’t really have a quick “polite” answer when people ask me if I’m ready for school to start, and why I generally say, “no”. Because while I’m ready for them, I’m not ready for me.
What are your memories of going back to school as a child? How do you feel about sending your kids back to school this fall? Are you ready?
Momma Rich's 