Some important things have happened in the last week:
I ran my second 5k for the Northwest Hope and Healing Foundation. I did beat last year's time, but just barely. In my defense, I was getting sick. Also, I'm pretty sure that's...just how fast I run. Anyway, I loved it and had a great time. This year was particularly awesome because a.) Matt and the kids came along, and they cheered for me as I neared the finish line, and b.) Dori and her husband and sisters were there as well. Last year at this time Dori was just beginning chemo, and this year she rocked the 5k. Matt snapped some good pictures, so one of these days maybe it will actually occur to me to upload them.
We spent the rest of the afternoon at Madison Beach, playing in the sand and swimming in Lake Washington. Matt swam out to the floating dock so he could fling himself off the high dive a few times while I played in the sand with the kids, but when my turn came I swam around a little and then returned to the grassy beach, where I stretched out on a towel and dozed in the sunshine. It was a pretty perfect way to spend our last real summer weekend. (Although the forecast for the next several days looks a lot more summery than most of our actual summer. Really? It could hit ninety next week? Oh, good. I'm glad I'll be in a classroom with no air conditioning, wearing professional clothing and swatting away the wasps that drift through my open door.)
I started school again. We had freshmen orientation on Thursday, and since I don't teach any freshmen, I didn't meet with my classes until Friday. Of course, I spent all of last week at school anyway, trying to get ready for the year, planning frantically, and trying to process all the changes we're supposed to implement. I was completely exhausted by yesterday afternoon, so you'd better believe I was ready for a three-day weekend. I abandoned all thoughts of cooking last night and drove the kids to West Seattle instead, where we met Matt for a low-key dinner at the Elliott Bay Brewery, and that, followed by a night of decent sleep (Suzannah and Isaac stayed in bed until 7:30!) and a long, slow run in the sunshine this morning, has left me feeling pretty good. I'm still overwhelmed, but less exhausted, and as I said earlier this week, feeling overwhelmed in a job I love is a pretty privileged problem to have. I haven't quite found my groove yet, but I'm excited to get there.
And finally, the biggest and most important news: my firstborn, my baby girl, started kindergarten.
That really trumps everything.
I was fine at kindergarten orientation on Tuesday. I'm thrilled with her kindergarten teacher; I'd heard good things about all three, and I would have been fine with any of them. But Suzannah made it into the class I really, really wanted her to get, so that was a huge weight off my shoulders. (I wonder if, years from now, I'll look back and chuckle at this younger self who was so concerned about which of three great teachers my daughter would have.) I felt reassured and confident that Suzannah would do just fine. She met her teacher on Thursday, and while she was quite shy and reserved -- as she often is when meeting new adults for the first time -- she seemed excited to start school.
I was losing perspective by Thursday morning; I was running around like crazy, trying to find my keys, feeling emotional and stressed. The kitchen was a wreck, and there was just stuff strewn absolutely everywhere. I had cleaned the house the day before, and suddenly it all seemed so futile. I felt crazy. I told Matt I really thought I was going to lose my shit, and Matt, being the wonderful, calming husband he is, wrapped me up in a hug and said, "Baby, I'm going to take care of this today, and it will be cleaned up when you come home." (He usually works from home on Thursdays.) I looked up at him and said, "I love you, and I'm sorry you have to be married to a girl who has no shit." He burst out laughing, and then I laughed in spite of myself, and things were sort of okay again.
(This kindergarten stuff -- it's the kind of thing that makes me want to stop total strangers and tell them about it. But I also don't really know what to say about it. How does one describe this feeling? I'm not sure my heart has ever felt so huge, so full-to-bursting of so many things. Mostly, I'm just so overwhelmed with love and pride and gratitude that this spunky little girl in all of her beautiful complexity is my daughter. I'm not sad the way people seem to expect; it's not sadness that makes my eyes well up when I think of her joining her little class, putting her lunch in her cubby, and doing all of her kindergarten things. It's not even sadness about time passing, really, even though I'm doing things like looking at old pictures and reading through old journal entries and remembering stories of her babyhood, of her toddlerhood, and feeling like those moments are still so near yet -- not. It's hard to fathom that she was ever an infant, instead of a girl who asks questions and tells stories and giggles and teases. And oh, how I loved her babyhood, and all of her lovely younger selves, but I wouldn't ever wish away what she is now, the person she continues to be and become. No, it's not sadness. But every other word, even words like bittersweetness, seem totally inadequate.)
On Friday morning, we got ready together. She dressed in a new pink polo shirt and embroidered jeans and let me put her hair in a pony-tail and "helped" me put on make-up. She seemed pretty matter-of-fact about it all, pretty cheerful. I could hardly breathe.
We took pictures.
We took her to school. We walked her to her classroom.
She hung up her new pink backpack. She already had a cubby, one she'd chosen the day before when she met her teacher. She gave us each a big hug, and then she walked over to the large rainbow carpet and joined all the other kids. Her cheeks were pink and I could tell she was nervous, but she was holding it together so well. (A boy in the classroom next door was sobbing and clinging to his mother. I knew how he felt.) She turned and waved at us, gave a little smile. We waved back, smiled as hard as we could, and left. And then we sort of staggered across the playground, holding hands and leaning heavily into each other. I must have looked awfully shaky, because we attracted lots of sympathetic smiles from other parents milling around. I really thought I might throw up. And then, it was so ridiculous, Matt and I kissed each other good-bye and went off to our respective jobs. I was all, what? I have to go to school and teach classes? How?
It really did put everything into perspective, though. I mean, it was pretty impossible for me to muster up any angst over the scheduling chaos that was going on at my school -- or, for that matter, anything else people were freaking out about. I was like, I DO NOT CARE, MY BABY GIRL HAS BEEN IN KINDERGARTEN FOR AN HOUR NOW, I AM A LITTLE DISTRACTED.
I met my students. I know a lot of them already, actually, so they were pretty understanding when I told them all that I would probably be a better teacher next week, after I'd had a chance to process the fact that MY BABY GIRL WAS IN KINDERGARTEN. (And once I have a chance to process everything in general, by the way, I think my classes will be pretty fantastic.) At the end of the day, I raced home and drifted aimlessly around the house for a bit. I dashed out the door twenty minutes before her school day ended. (I remain infinitely grateful that my schedule allows me to both drop her off and pick her up.)
It takes about five minutes to walk to her school, so I sat on the playground and called my parents and asked if they'd felt like throwing up on my first day of school.
The fifteen-minute wait was excruciating. When the teacher finally opened the door, she was smiling. "We made it!" she said. Remembering my manners, I resisted the urge to push past her and elbow my way into her room. When I did enter the classroom (in a very orderly fashion), I saw my little girl right away -- and she was beaming. And my heart -- I don't even know how to describe what it felt like. It just exploded. I couldn't wait to hug her, but since she's all grown up now and probably wouldn't have appreciated having me squealing against her neck in front of everyone, I managed to wait until we'd at least made it outside before I knelt down and squeezed her against me.
"Hi, Bug," I said. "What do you say we walk to Starbucks and have a treat, just the two of us?" She nodded and smiled, and so we walked, hand-in-hand, through the afternoon sunshine. I tried not to bombard her with questions and just let her talk, and before we'd walked a block she had told me all about her day. (..."And then we had a treasure hunt, and I ate my lunch and a girl helped me open my milk, and I picked a green spot on the rainbow carpet, and then I picked a blue one, and then red and purple and...yellow. And we went outside lots of times, and I climbed on the ladder and played in the sandbox, and a boy poured sand on my sandcastle, but it's okay because I wanted him to do that. And I got to drink water out of the drinking fountain. And my teacher read us a story about a mouse...") She wanted to stop right there on the sidewalk and pull out a picture she'd drawn. And she's been asking when she gets to go back to school.
All I really need is for her to be okay, and I'm okay. And that, I guess, is where I'm at. Earlier this week, I wrote this -- it seems like an appropriate conclusion: Isaac has a cold. I have a cold. I feel gross and overwhelmed and tired. But really, really, when I look at my life, at the way it looks in this exact moment, with all the shitty diapers and runny noses and dishes all over the kitchen, with all of its unwritten lesson plans, tantrums, insecurities and fears and uncertainties, it's still the only life I want. Because all of that just means I have this wonderful family and a complicated, absurd job that I happen to love, and all of that is more than I could ever ask or deserve from this life.
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