Kindergarten

memories of the first day of school & wishing my baby never has to go

All summer, my Facebook memories have left me with knots in my throat, in need of a few moments to myself, basking in the past, hating that sinking feeling of missing someone, myself, a day, even. I hadn’t realized how full of precious things summertime has been for me my entire life until this summer of remembering.

This week, a post my dad made eight years ago came up: a picture of him and me when I was just a few years old, playing on the lawn of our college alma mater. He posted that picture the week I moved into the dorms. Scrolling through all the comments, prayers for my parents that week, disbelief how old I’d gotten…it made me sick. Sick over how quickly time has moved, sick over how young my dad looked, sick over how precious that moment in time was…how if I could return to that version of myself, about to go to college, even if just for few minutes, I would. But most of all, sick that in that picture, my dad probably felt like he had all the time in the world, laying in the grass with me that day. And now here I am, sick thinking about my baby girl going to college one day, his grandbaby. Time can be so cruel.

This hasn’t been the first time in Kit’s short five months I’ve made myself cry thinking about things far too far in the future to be thinking about, such as the dreadful day I will pack her little lunchbox, kiss her forehead, and watch as Price pulls out of the driveway, taking her to kindergarten. At the beginning of summer, before the heat consumed the nights, we were walking the neighborhood after supper. One thing led to another, and by the end, we were talking about when Kit will inevitably have to go to school. By the time we crept back upon our front porch, I had tears in my eyes, my lips soft on baby’s head, asleep in her carrier on my chest.

Just the other day, as I rocked her after her afternoon bottle, I thought about how one day, I will not eat my lunch on the floor with her. I started thinking logically…how I saw a video of a mom practicing school lunchtime with her baby before kindergarten started, filing that away to remember in five years. Then I thought…you could homeschool, Addy. You would be good at it! But sadly, I know I couldn’t. I’d never leave the house. I’m so content here, just the three of us. She’d never make any friends.

One day, Kit will have to go to school.

And today, I need to stop thinking about it. Goodness gracious!

School started this week in my sleepy little town. As I scrolled, I saw picture after picture of little babies off to elementary school, grown babies off to high school. I could just feel those pictures, as if I had experienced them myself. Early morning, the muggy cool air before the heat of the day, nerves and too much perfume.

When I think about the first day of school, I mostly think of high school. I was in the marching band – bass drum #2, and terribly, we practiced every morning at 7:30 on the black top where the buses waited after school. I would wake up however early enough to put my hair in hot rollers every single day while sitting in my vanity sink, eat breakfast with my mom while she packed my lunch (my favorite being the Martha White muffins or crescent rolls with brown sugar bacon), and then agonize in my closet mirror over everything I had to wear, usually settling on jeans and a cardigan (packed in my backpack, as I had to wear clothes to march in to start). Then I would carefully wrap my hair in a bun, in the hopes when I let it out in the five minutes between first period band and the rest of the day, it would look effortlessly curly. But kindly, on the first day of school, we didn’t have to practice outside. We got to dress up, arrive looking our best and staying that way all the day long.

I still drive my first car, a Volkswagen Passat. But as I sit and write, I’m oddly overwhelmed with the smell of my car back then…on the way to school, back from Tuesday night band rehearsals, to swim practice, sitting in my friends’ driveways. I would listen to the same songs over and over on the short drive to the high school: lots of Coldplay (I especially loved the Ghost Stories album), with a few Beyonce songs thrown in. I remember where I parked, I remember where my locker was, I remember how comforting it was to see the drumline first thing, oddly. And I remember how ready I was to see my mom afterwards. We’d sit in our front living room with a tub of cookie dough between us, not a single detail left out from my day.

I loved school. It’s the one thing I’ve always really, truly been phenomenal at, to say so myself. I remember my freshman year of high school, studying for mid-terms for hours every night. When I went to take the tests, I’d finish in less than ten minutes, having memorized every single answer. I’d sit for the rest of class with my earphone wires wound up my sleeves, hidden, listening to Christmas music and pretending to study for the next one.

It was easy to be smart here, easy to study and read and pass little tests. And it was fun to do well, to see my name printed on honors lists, hear it at awards assemblies. For a while, my go-to daydream while swimming laps or falling asleep or bored in class was of graduation. I loved Pomp & Circumstance, I loved the validation of cords around your neck, the accomplishment of it all. How just pitiful timing for me to have been in the class of 2020, for my graduation to be on a football field, six feet apart, months and months after the balmy spring day it had been planned for, our faces hidden behind masks.

I joke that because of that missed graduation, I got my masters degree in order to experience a redemption one. And sadly, that one was even more pitiful.

When I told my dad about my crying over kindergarten already, he just laughed. He told me how my mom couldn’t even go with him on that first day, how after leaving me in my classroom, he passed another dad in the hallway, a friend. But all they could do was wave without making eye contact, for there were far too many emotions, nothing left to say. My mom always tells me how she’d go sit in the pick-up line early, reading or making friends with other mothers who just desperately missed their babies, too. When I’d get in the car, I would dissolve into tears, just so very relieved to be back with my mom. And I imagine my experience as a parent will be rather similar to theirs.

I thank Jesus, though, that as I write this, my baby is asleep in her bassinet beside my bed, kindergarten a far off thought.