I Don't Miss This Day

Wow, were my flowers better when Boy#2 was five.

Today is the first day of school in Small Town, and all over town kids posed for pictures with their backpacks and new tennis shoes, faces shiny and ready for another year of learning. 

I do not have an easily-accessible picture of Boy#1's very first day of school. I'm sure it exists, somewhere, because those were the days when I still pulled myself together enough to photographically document such events. I remember the days as if they were today, though.

Remember when you were a first grader, and going off to school for the first time? You wondered if you would know anyone, or if the teacher would be mean, or if you would pass? Really? You didn't worry about any of those things?

Well, how about when you were a seventh grader and going to middle school for the first time? You wondered if you would know anyone, or if you'd be in a homeroom with all the unpopular kids (and worry that you were one of them), or whether that sweater that you thought was so cute really looked terrible on you? Really? You didn't worry about any of those things?

Well, surely you worried when you went off to college, and were afraid that all those teachers who told you college was so much harder than high school were right, and that you'd get terribly homesick, and that you'd never make any friends? Really? You didn't worry about any of those things?

I worried about all of those things, each and every year, and being a mother only meant I proxy worried for all my kids. The first day of school has meant nervousness multiplied: (Unfamiliar Teachers + Unknown Territory + Unexplored Pitfalls) x 4 Boys x However Many Years They've Been In School = My Jittery Mood Every Year Until They Went Off to College.


This year, though, I was able to look at Facebook pictures of my friends' grandchildren scrubbed and polished on their front porches, and send them some good thoughts. They'll be okay, just as I was and just as my kids were.

Still, I can't help being relieved that I've graduated from the days when it was my turn to walk away from the kid in the new classroom.

These are the days I love the empty nest.