Creative Voices: Back-to-School Emotions

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I’ll admit it; dog movies make me cry (and we’re on an Air Bud kick over here). Viral videos about the trials and tribulations of parenthood make me tear up. And I certainly can’t make it through any kind of scene of death on tv or in the movies without blubbering up like an idiot. Humane Society commercials … ugh, don’t get me started.

I can often be found tearing up while gazing at my kids. And partly it’s because I can’t quite figure out how they got so big, how they came to be mine (it blows my mind still that I have kids)! And when they feel something deeply, even if it’s just the sting of their skin scraping concrete, I feel something deeply. I’m feeling something deeply right now, and hold on … not.going.to.cry.

We moved recently. To a whole new city. And as back-to-school time nears, nerves are building up and emotions are running high.

I moved a lot when I was a kid. I can understand now, as an adult, why my parents had to make the choices that they did but let me tell you … it was rough. Getting ready on the first day of school, trying to look and feel my best while a dozen “what-ifs” swirled in my head, I would shake with anticipation. Arriving at school and seeing a sea of unknown faces, and worse, clustered together chatting excitedly with one another, it is hard not to wonder, “Will I be able to find my place in all this?” And then making that first really good connection, a smile or a hello or a kind teacher who brings you into the fold, and tension starts to release.

I guess it’s leftover emotion from my own days being “the new kid” but looking at my oldest and what lies ahead for him in the first few weeks of school, I’m feeling all nervous again. He’ll find a friend, or two, or many. I know it. But that anticipation is still there, and still very real.

He’s closed himself off a bit this summer, hating the summer camp I put him in and saying it’s hard to meet new people. Heart.Breaking. And it has me gazing at him when he isn’t sure I’m watching and tearing up a little bit.

Were you ever the new kid? How did you survive the first day of school? It’s hard being the parent this time around, because I can’t be there to make it right and easy for him. And I guess I’m needing that bit of reassurance … so I’m not that blubbering mess the first week of school.

We’ll start talking about heading back-to-school, about how exciting it is to make new friends and to share new experiences. And I’ll survive too, just like he will. (right?!)