Hard Day's Night
Today is the first day of High School lonely for my Kitten.
Yesterday was the last day of school for her boy. Now he'll graduate on Saturday and move on into the big wide world. He's a bit shaken himself. The world is very big. How does one know which way to go when structured rights and wrongs and quantitative scales of success have been removed, leaving a vacuum of "how do I know what to do and how I'm doing"?
She's cried in anticipation of this coming day, calling her father at work just to hear his voice in the hopes it would steady her nerves a bit. She's cried in the shower so no one would see. But her mother still knows the signs.
I drover her to school today. The boy wasn't picking her up since he didn't need to be at school. I could tell she felt him not there.
And I know she'll feel his absence in the halls between classes. When he's not there to share lunch. When she's sitting trying to listen to her teachers, knowing he's not even in the building. And when the 3 0'clock bell rings and the end of the day smile isn't there that says we can finally be together again while I drive you home, she'll feel it.
I did, so many years ago.
It's funny how my daughter's life parallels mine in so many ways. My best friend in High School (later to be her mother!) and my girlfriend at the time both graduated a year ahead of me. I felt all the things that my Kitten is feeling, and then some.
It all speaks of his impending departure at the end of summer, when he goes off to college. She'll feel it in the fall when he's far away and she has to go back get used to the new normal of High School that will never quite be the same. But she'll make it.
And oddly enough, Kitten's boy is going off to the same college that my wife-to-be went to the fall after she graduated. And interesting to note, it's the branch of state Uni that is in the town where my brother lives 3 hrs to the west.
My daughter and the boy sat on the curb later last night, eventually laying back onto the grass to look up at the stars and listen to the breeze and try not to think about everything.
My mom has promised that in the fall, anytime grandma and grandpa take a trip to see my brother, Kitten is invited to go with them so she can visit her man.
In my life of changing jobs and moving and teaching and chaperoning, it feels that more and more of life is about having to say good-buy. Hello always seems to hide a good-bye. After leaving public education years ago, where you can count on seeing 90% of your acquaintances year after year, more or less, I have just never felt entirely prepared for wave after wave of separations that life brings.
Unlike my experience, however, she'll be visiting the person that she's been emailing, and chatting with, and myspacing, and videochatting with and calling on skype, and texting, and blogging to. . . .
I'm not quite sure how they'll really be able to tell they they're actually apart.
Yesterday was the last day of school for her boy. Now he'll graduate on Saturday and move on into the big wide world. He's a bit shaken himself. The world is very big. How does one know which way to go when structured rights and wrongs and quantitative scales of success have been removed, leaving a vacuum of "how do I know what to do and how I'm doing"?
She's cried in anticipation of this coming day, calling her father at work just to hear his voice in the hopes it would steady her nerves a bit. She's cried in the shower so no one would see. But her mother still knows the signs.
I drover her to school today. The boy wasn't picking her up since he didn't need to be at school. I could tell she felt him not there.
And I know she'll feel his absence in the halls between classes. When he's not there to share lunch. When she's sitting trying to listen to her teachers, knowing he's not even in the building. And when the 3 0'clock bell rings and the end of the day smile isn't there that says we can finally be together again while I drive you home, she'll feel it.
I did, so many years ago.
It's funny how my daughter's life parallels mine in so many ways. My best friend in High School (later to be her mother!) and my girlfriend at the time both graduated a year ahead of me. I felt all the things that my Kitten is feeling, and then some.
It all speaks of his impending departure at the end of summer, when he goes off to college. She'll feel it in the fall when he's far away and she has to go back get used to the new normal of High School that will never quite be the same. But she'll make it.
And oddly enough, Kitten's boy is going off to the same college that my wife-to-be went to the fall after she graduated. And interesting to note, it's the branch of state Uni that is in the town where my brother lives 3 hrs to the west.
My daughter and the boy sat on the curb later last night, eventually laying back onto the grass to look up at the stars and listen to the breeze and try not to think about everything.
My mom has promised that in the fall, anytime grandma and grandpa take a trip to see my brother, Kitten is invited to go with them so she can visit her man.
In my life of changing jobs and moving and teaching and chaperoning, it feels that more and more of life is about having to say good-buy. Hello always seems to hide a good-bye. After leaving public education years ago, where you can count on seeing 90% of your acquaintances year after year, more or less, I have just never felt entirely prepared for wave after wave of separations that life brings.
Unlike my experience, however, she'll be visiting the person that she's been emailing, and chatting with, and myspacing, and videochatting with and calling on skype, and texting, and blogging to. . . .
I'm not quite sure how they'll really be able to tell they they're actually apart.
posted by Will at 1:22 PM
1 Comments:
hi there! Are you getting my emails? I sent 2.
God bless
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