Kindergarten For Me

Today is the day.  As with most significant days in one’s life, it seems that an overflow of emotions always seems to lead up to them.  There are some days that you look forward to and wonder when they will ever arrive.  There are other days when you do your best to postpone them.  Still there are other days when your emotions are mixed, a part of you wants to rush to the day while another part of you wants to keep it at bay for as long as possible.  I’m still trying to decipher what kind of a day this is.

Today is the day that my little boy starts kindergarten.  It didn’t sneak up on me.  I don’t feel as if the time has completely flown by since he was born.  But I do certainly expect that the time will not feel slow from here on out.  I have heard from many wise people who have gone before me.  They have passed on the advice that time flies and there is no slowing it down.  I have heard their warnings and have done my best to heed them.  Today has not snuck up on me.

While it hasn’t snuck up on me, I can’t say that I am overjoyed for its arrival.  At the same time, I look forward to this adventure with my son now and for his brother and sister to follow him over the next few years.  I look forward to seeing him blossom and bloom, growing into the boy and man that God created him to be.  I look forward to seeing him discover his strengths and abilities, to tap into the gifts that he has and watch as he learns to use them to the best of his potential.

Robert Fulghum wrote “All I Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.”  I don’t think I’ll be pulling my son out of school at the end of the year, but I certainly look forward to seeing where he goes.  He has made me proud in just a few short years and I wonder how many more times he will do the same.  I’m not naïve in thinking that there won’t be some disappointment in years to come, there will be, but I certainly hope and pray that the good outweighs the bad, that the pride outweighs the disappointment.  After all, I have disappointed him before and I know that I will do it again, I’m only human.

Yes, today marks the day that I become a slave to the school calendar.  My life will be scheduled around vacations and days off, around school programs and field days, around homework and other activities.  And I’m fine with that.  Life will change, but who really likes to go through life unchanged?  Well, I know a few people, but I don’t think that I am one of them.

Summers will mean more to me now, maybe as much as they did when I was a kid.  I will look forward to those moments that I still have, knowing that they will grow fewer and further in between as time marches on.  I will seize them when they come and do my best to remember that once they are past, they can’t be recovered except in my mind.  There is no time travel but for the time travel in my mind and if I seize these moments, I can go there as often as I like, as many times as I want while my brain still functions.

The end of one chapter signifies the beginning of another one.  As long as there are pages, I will continue to read.  I will turn them and soak in every word.  I will eat them up and memorize them in my head.  It seems that the book will go on and on, but you never know.  So, I will just continue to read.

I felt the emotion last week when I went to open house.  I feel the emotion today at the bus stop.  I will feel it again today when he gets off of the bus.  I will feel it when he unpacks his day as we sit down and enjoy our dinner together tonight.  Emotion is not something to be feared or run from, it’s an old friend, waiting to be embraced, longing to be remembered.  Today is a day full of emotion and I have certainly had a lot of those in recent days.  Today is an adventure, the beginning of something unexpected and special, and I’m looking forward to the ride.