― Anne Lamott
I did not expect to feel so emotional -- maybe even strangely heartbroken -- on my daughter's last day of kindergarten.
Her first day of kindergarten, sure. I spent all of last summer in a perpetual state of wanting to toss my cookies over the thought of sending my baby girl to kindergarten; I full expected to feel like a wreck that day. (Was it already a year ago that Matt and I left our daughter in a classroom with her new pink backpack and all her school supplies? Or, to be more accurate, were gently shooed away by her teacher after we'd taken pictures and grinned so hard our faces hurt, trying to be brave for our daughter? And staggered across the playground afterwards, slumped against each other, towards our car, towards the absurd real world that required us to go to work after that? It seems like that just happened. And yet so much has happened since then.) But we truly could have not asked for or been granted a more wonderful first year of school for our daughter. On the very first day -- before that, even, on the day of orientation, when we met her teacher -- I knew she would be okay. I knew she'd love it, I knew she'd be loved. I knew she'd just absolutely rock kindergarten.
So it has been great. I'm just blown away by the growth I've seen in my little girl this year, and I love her teacher and student teacher, and it's possible I may have been just a touch too effusive when wrote each of them a card a few days ago telling them just how grateful I am for everything they've done and for being so wonderful and nurturing and putting me instantly at ease way back in September. (Still, I'm also a teacher, and that kind of feedback means a lot to me, so.) It's possible that a part of me believed my daughter could just be in kindergarten indefinitely, with these wonderful teachers and this great little class and I wouldn't ever have to worry about her schooling ever again. I've been looking forward to the end of the school year for myself rather desperately, but I really didn't think much about the inevitable end for my daughter as well, and so this week that reality kind of punched me in the gut.
Both Suzannah and I had a short day on our last day of school; mine ended an hour before hers, so as soon as my day ended (at ten in the morning) I raced home to grab the camera before I walked to school.
I took pictures on the way, by myself. This is the path through the trees we've walked so many times this year. This is what it looks like on my girl's last day of kindergarten, the sun filtering through the leaves, shadows dancing on the ground. This is the huge, moss-covered tree she likes to touch. This is the little clearing where she picks tiny white flowers for me. I wanted to capture, somehow, the moment -- the afternoon, the sunshine. The moment that contained so many other moments.
I waited outside her classroom, squinting in the sunshine. When the bell finally rang, I actually felt tears pricking at my eyelids. I forced them back; they would have confused my daughter. They surprised me, a bit. Instead, I put on my brightest smile, I hugged my girl, and I took pictures of her with her teachers. We exchanged knowing glances. We made it!
(The end of the school year is always so bittersweet. Some years more bitter than sweet. I had a hard time saying good-bye to my seniors this year -- I really, truly loved that class. With any luck, though, I'll have my favorite juniors again next year. I'm so ready to let go of the rest, to get some distance, to recharge, to breathe.)
Ultimately, it's a good way to feel at the end of a year. It's good to feel the ache. It means it mattered. And it did.
In less important news, we are nearing the end of a kitchen remodel. We've both saved for and put off this project; it's never felt like something I needed, really, because increasingly I feel that it's far too easy to "need" things just because someone else tells us we need them. (This is why I love that my children don't watch real TV yet; I can still control, to some tiny little extent, the amount of children's marketing they encounter.) But also, it was time. Our kitchen was fine when we bought our house as eager young newlyweds moving into our first real home; nearly ten years later, I'm so ready to get rid of the awful wood veneer cabinets, the scratched-to-hell porcelain sink, the floor that's peeling up around the edges. Originally, we talked about the floor. Then about the counters. Finally, we just went ahead and decided to do the whole thing, because, as Matt said, we don't want to look back in a few years and wish we had.
It's going really well. I listened to far too many horror stories about kitchen remodels before we actually started. It would cost three times as much as we budgeted for! It would take at least twice as long as we expected, and probably more! They would trash our house! There would be dust absolutely everywhere, and we would spend the next month cleaning in the aftermath!
Fortunately, none of that has proved to be true. While we're tearing out pretty much everything, we're not reconfiguring our kitchen, we're not knocking out any walls, we're not messing with the plumbing or electricity -- it's pretty straightforward. Our contractor is a neighbor of my brother's, and we've enjoyed working with him. They tore out the old cabinets on Monday. New cabinets were installed on Tuesday and Wednesday, along with an over-the-range microwave that is going to pretty much double our counter space. Our new countertops went in today. The new floor will be installed on Monday. One week! Start to finish! And they haven't trashed our house! I'm so pleased with it; I know everyone always talks about how the kitchen is the most important thing in terms of resale and all, but we have no plans to move out of our cozy little home anytime soon and I really just want to love the kitchen in the house where we live. It's in the very center of our home, and I spend an awful lot of time in it, so this matters to me. And I'm so grateful we're able to do this now.
Also, I am really, really tired of eating out. That got old fast. It's funny; I kind of love eating out in general. I do. We do it about once a week, generally on Saturday nights, and I totally look forward to it, it's this totally self-indulgent thing for me or something, but we've been eating out (mostly out, with a few takeout meals eaten here) since Monday, and I'm sick of it. If this project had taken any longer, I'd plan more and use our slow cooker or the microwave, but I also hate the idea of washing food-crusted dishes in our bathroom. I can't wait to cook a real meal again. But I also get that this isn't a real problem.
So summer has begun, officially, even though today was cold and rainy. Both of my kiddos are a little under the weather, Isaac especially, with nasty coughs. Especially at night. Two days ago I was up with my son from two o'clock to four o'clock in the morning; he'd settle into bed only to wail for me five minutes later, and all he really wanted was to be held. So I rolled out of bed, again and again, wishing fiercely for the days when he still shared our bed and this was easier yet still, somehow, through my fatigue, cherishing the moment -- lifting him, feeling his arms around my neck, his breath on my cheek, rocking him, soothing him back into a fitful sleep. Late this afternoon he seemed so worn out, so content to lie on the couch with his blankies and his Raggedy Andy and one of the videos Suzannah chose at the library this afternoon; then, after pizza (delivery night, since Matt stayed out late with some of his coworkers) he revived, building an elaborate train track and a tent out of an old sheet with his sister. Both of them went to bed too late. But tomorrow is Saturday, and I do not have to grade any papers this weekend, and even if it is cold and rainy and my living room is full of my kitchen and my dining room table is covered with paper plates and our dish rack and coffee maker and a hundred other things, and even if we've had too much pizza this week, and the kids have runny noses and coughs, I can breathe.
I can really breathe.
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