God I used to love summers. Long for them, starting all the way in February in Iowa when we would get our first, accidental warm day. “Warm” being anything over forty degrees, which was enough for our thick-blooded, thick-headed Midwestern selves to sport shorts and t-shirts to school. Sped the whole way there with the windows down, Tom and I would, screaming joyously as we decidedly did not freeze our ass off all the way to school in his blue-smoke belching, 1979 Honda Civic hatchback.
And then later in March, sitting in class and gazing out the open window, breathing in the wafting earth that was suddenly awakened, late winter blossoms and breezes that alternated warm and cold. Like the earth hadn’t made up its mind yet. But Youth and Spring and Summer were coming. Summer, when you got to do whatever you wanted. Vacation and swimming pools and hanging out and no more of this crap.
And every year, even now, I still get excited for the summer with the kids. Old habits, old patterns. And stupidity. It never really dawns on me until a week before their school was ending what summer really meant now. Shit, you guys are gonna be around all day long! As a parent, summer means you are now working double time. Summer means you are ON.
Which is great too. Great for a good, long while. The ruse of them sleeping past 7am, of getting along, of not being bored. Like childbirth tricks women’s minds into forgetting, I forgot that they would be up early every morning, looking at the Entertainment Director (me) for what great, fun things they were going to do today. Starting right at sunup. And it was all great fun, the camps and vacations and parks and Chuck E Cheese’s and movies and playdates ad infididum. But come August my ass is tired. Tired tired tired. Tired of never being alone, always packing up the car for the beach or the pool, always the constant activity and cleaning and spending. It’s then that school gleams like a sweet beacon from across the bay. Just keep paddling, you’ll get there, it’s coming. Normalcy and solitude and work, you can have all those again. Soon the kids’ll be the county’s problem again.
And then it finally comes and joyous day! They’re bundled and backpacked up like tiny little minions of educational warfare. Out the house, down the street, and into their lines at the bell. And they look back and I smile and blow them another kiss and I’m sad. Goddamn it! I will not cry. I will…NOT…CRY oh fuck me I do this every year. I make less sense than they do and they make absolutely none of it at all!
It’s the picture of it, I guess. The first day of Preschool, first day of Kindergarten, today Sophie’s Sixth Grade and Lilah’s Second. Holy shit we’re at the middle school hurdle! My first day of college flashes in my blinking eyes, me in that soft, light blue suit my parents put me in, even then old fashioned, my Mom smiling as tears rolled down her face and I knew that this was it. And now mine aren’t going to be in the house all day. But I wanted them out of the damn house!
Watching Sophie trundle through the foyer of middle school was when I almost lost it this year. She was fighting back tears and I was trying to say positive affirming things without cracking my voice. A fully grown woman 8th grader with makeup, backpack, and attitude got out of the car next to us as we walked, just as a flash of a three foot tall, red-headed boy scurried across our path to his own classroom. All in the same bait ball of fish. Middle school. Dammit how did this happen! How is my baby girl suddenly old enough to be subjected to this battleground of adolescence.
I know it’s a great school with great programs and great teachers. And, realistically, it can’t suck even remotely as much as my junior high did. But as I walk with her this first time, I realize that’s not even it. She’s growing up. They’re supposed to. Every year, the summer ends and I’m overjoyed and then sad. Labile parenting at it’s finest.
I hug two Moms on the way out that I used to see at Parent participation all those years ago on the way to the car. Plaintive smiles and sweet statements that crack at the end, and I’m the one who has to brush back tears and escape. What the fuck is wrong with me?
I’ve completely given up at this point. I cry every year. Don’t really know why. Just do. Weak, soft, old-man-stay-at-home-Mom-tears. Add it to the list. Wear sunglasses.
Ha!! EXACTLY Matt. You nailed it! Sweet little minions.
You made me cry, damn it! I enjoyed it nonetheless.
A good definition of BITTER SWEET!
Matt- trust me when I say this RUN do not walk; SPRINT do not saunder; RACE out and buy a pair of Ray Bans to hide the man tears… With the first day of middle school hurdle behind you, you have successfully accepted the next stage of parenting challenges…
First Dance
First Date
First Day of High School
First Day of College….
They are all real man tear jerkers, but I have every confidence you will breeze through them all perhaps teary eyed but with your trusty Ray Bans no one will be the wiser- they’ll just think you’re stylin.