Kid #3 starts school in the morning.
As in…she’s leaving the house and going to another building for eight hours!
Oh is she ever excited to start 8th grade…truly! She’s been organizing and labeling (and re-labeling and re-organizing) school and locker supplies for WEEKS! She has her first few outfits laid out (although I would bet her college savings that those will change!) down to her matching mask and scrunchie. I realize how lucky we are to live in a part of the country where in-seat school is possible. I also know how lucky we are to attend a school that is willing to to do everything possible to make it work.
To be honest….99% of me is SUPER EXCITED for her. I’m thrilled that she gets to be social and see the people she’s been missing for over five months. I’m thrilled that she will be able to learn in-person from some fabulous teachers. I’m thrilled that there will be a return to some sort of schedule that we were so abrubptly ripped away from in March.
But….but but but but.
My eyes weirdly tear up when I picture her stepping out of my car tomorrow. Is it because I’m also picturing her getting her temperature checked before she walks in? Or because while I’m laughing about her dismay that her grade has to wear bright red “buffs” (which go with NOTHING, mom….NOTHING!) but at the same time am also kind of sickened by how not-normal things are going to be?
Yes, maybe all of that. And maybe more, I think. The last five (plus) months have not been my favorite time, to understate things a bit. Frankly, they’ve been one of the most biazrre and scary things my little family has had to live through. While we were blessed enough to escape the tragedies that so many others had to face, we certainly dealt with our share of changes, uncertainties, unknowns and disappointments. To state the hideously and (now) universal obvious….2020 hasn’t quite been what we planned.
Still, amidst all that pile of mess, there was beauty.
My college boy spent five months with us. In close quarters.
My kids bonded in ways I never imagind and secretly dreamed of.
We learned to hard-core live with only our family, and learned so much about each other that we had no idea we didn’t know.
The usually extreme pressures of homework and ACT’s and studying were minimized or negated.
The spots normally filled with sports and activites and running our tails off became ours to fill with slowness, mindfulness, family dinners, projects and togetherness.
Don’t get me wrong….I’m ready for Covid to release its’ grip on our world. I’m ready for us to move back into life and keep living and growing. I’m ready for college-boy to take his almost adult self out of the house and follow his adult-size dreams. I’m ready to travel and socialize and gather and hug my mom again!
But as we begin to move forward, I’m watching my daily calendar fill up with all kinds of commitments. While they are all good things that I’m choosing to put in there and excited to be a part of….they are also all adding their weight to push up against the giant boulder of time. The more things that we are able to do, the more things we are now comitted to do…the more the boulder slowly inches forward until it begins to really roll, steadily and quickly, pushing all of the slowness and mindfulness out of its’ path.
When I drop my daughter off tomorrow the house will be quiet. My dogs will be slightly depressed and I will get lots done quickly and maybe even take a moment to sit down, sip some coffee, and look around the house. The boys will be at work and I will think about how as we begin to wrestle this virus into submission, we gain the world and lose our still little bubbles. Soon my junior will head back to high school and my eldest will leave for Texas, and the “not-another-family-dinner!!!” complaint will disappear from our repertoire.
Isn’t it funny how your heart can be so divided? Excitement and active-nostalgia duking it out inside your chest?
Forward we go. I’m fiercly praying protection over these babies as they march out into the world. I’m also fiercly praying that their schools don’t send them home after three weeks due to outbreaks. But, if they do, I’ll clear off the dining room table so there is room for another puzzle, and start a new family-dinner meal plan.
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