Today is the first day of school. Does anyone like the first day of school? I’m not even the one going to school and I’m still bummed that summer vacation is over. I didn’t really like school as a kid. I mostly liked being with all the other kids and I guess I liked learning new things but all the rules! And just because someone has chosen to work in a school with kids doesn’t mean they’re good at being with kids or relating to kids or even being a role model for kids. A lot of the adults I remember were so uptight and thought everything was black and white. Shit’s not black and white, especially as a teenager. All that bullshit was a big part of why I didn’t like school and my own kids have been dealing with the same exact bullshit since they were in preschool and they see it and call it out and it’s probably a part of why they aren’t excited to go back to school either. I know some parents have been looking forward to today because they think their kids need structure or they want a break from feeling like they have to entertain their kids or whatever. I get it but I’ll always pick summer vacation over school.
But here we are. I do often feel like our kids need more time away from us to have their own experiences and to learn on their own but the end of summer vacation…Ugh. Still feels so lame!
Eighth grade and fifth grade this year. The 8th grade bus stop is at the corner where there’s this big rock where the kids used to stop on bike rides and stand on the rock. That rock doesn’t look so big to them now. They are both starting the last grade in their respective schools. We are at the point in their development where this first day of school milestone is a bit unpleasant for me in what it represents. They aren’t really little anymore.
I usually feel like I have a good relationship with Time but then it does something sneaky like making me feel like this, unexpectedly, on the first day of school. When we moved into this house, our neighbor had two kids in high school and one in middle school. Now it’s been so many years that all three of them have had enough time to have finished high school and college. When their oldest graduated from high school, I asked him how he was feeling about it. He said, “We’re both ready”. What a great answer. I hope that’s where we are at at that point.
But right now our kids still seem so little even though they kind of aren’t. I know what I looked like in eighth grade. I can see a photo from the eighth grade semi-formal dance in my head. I look like a baby in that picture but I was about to start high school. In some ways our eighth grader is more grown up than I was but I had spent a lot more time away from home doing my own thing with friends. That’s not all good but you can’t really figure out who you are if you’re hanging around at your parents’ house.
Just last week I bumped into my fifth grade teacher. I probably hadn’t seen him since I finished fifth grade as I went to a different school the next year. I told him that my youngest was starting fifth grade. That was weird for me. I was with my fifth grade teacher remembering what I was like, what I was feeling and that I didn’t think I was a little kid anymore in fifth grade while I was telling this guy that knew me then that my youngest was starting fifth grade. Time was all spiraled and folding up on me in strange ways in that moment.
Time is like the ocean tide constantly moving against the shore. High tide, low tide. Sometimes pounding the shore, sometimes gently slipping up and down land’s edge. But no one or no thing is going to stop its flow. In these moments of transition, we have these feelings about the change that’s taking place. About turning one page or maybe even closing one book and starting another. It’s a time to reassess and take notice of what’s already passed. This end of the summer/start of the school year feels ______. Well, it feels something. It feels like it weighs more. Something about the kids being in the last years of their schools and being on the brink of larger changes is making me take notice this time around.
Walking our fifth grader to the bus stop, we had to walk past that corner with the big rock. As we were passing by, she stopped to stand upon that rock.