For the Reader

The Bittersweet Start Of A New School Year

Every year as the first day of school approaches I’m emotionally torn. On the one hand, I’m beyond ecstatic to get my life back after a summer of the house being busy as a trains station with our son’s friends hanging out, family trips and the dizzying swing between too many summer activities happening at once and our son inevitably moaning “I’m bored!”. Like parents across the globe, I’m only too happy to slow down my car long enough to lovingly push my kid out on the first day of school and leave smoking tire marks as I peel out of the parking lot, free at last.

But as our son gets older, the excitement of school starting is tempered by the realization that there won’t be too many more summers together at home. Even before he goes to college, our son will start spending less and less time with my husband and I. I know it’s the natural progression; no one wants to raise a Norman Bates. But knowing that we don’t have that much time left before he starts preferring to hang out with his friends rather than with his parents, makes this year’s first day of school a little bittersweet. 

I think most parents operate with some level of anxiety in their daily life. I worry about being too hard on our son or not hard enough, are we spoiling him, are we teaching him the lessons he needs to be prepared for the future, are we focusing on him enough or do we need to back off…there are so many ways to second guess what we’re doing as parents it can make us crazy. I battle with all of that as well as fitting my writing into our daily life. I get stressed when I’m not writing. But when I try to write when our son is at home, I feel guilty and selfish that I’m not spending time with him. Add in the pressure of knowing he is growing up and going to want more independence as he ages, my brain turns every minute that I don’t hang out with our son into a tragically missed opportunity for a moment of connection that I can never get back.

Dramatic? Perhaps, but I’m a fiction writer so you shouldn’t be too surprised…

This summer, I forced myself to relegate my writing to times when he was in camp or when we were on vacation. It didn’t completely reduce my anxiety over the fact that I wasn’t writing every day, but it was the most comfortable option I could find to make the most of our son being home for summer. I keep reminding myself that soon I’ll have more time to write when he is hanging out with his friends when he’s a teen. (sniff) And starts driving. (lip quivering) And dating. (sob). 

(Deep breath) One thing at a time.

So the same stress I had a couple of months ago when school ended and my writing time flew out the window, I am now facing because I’m losing all that precious time I was spending with our son during the summer. But life is a never-ending balance between what you want and what you get so I’m going to focus on the positive. I plan on hitting the ground running now that school has started by finalizing my television treatment and then starting a new book. If I work extra hard I just might have the first draft done by New Year’s Eve. Now that I can write every week day, I’ll just have to take advantage of the times I can hang out with our son after school and on weekends.

I wish I could hang on to these summer days with our son forever, but I’m all too soon the routine would wear on us. The fact that these quicksilver flashes of happiness cannot be contained is the very thing that makes transitions as hard as they are. The mere effort of trying to grip these elusive moments of fun changes what they are. Even if I could capture them, they would never be the same, just how an audio recording is never as powerful as a life performance. The face that I cannot stop time from marching forward makes me want to listen to every footfall, savor every second.

To that end, that I  started building Legos with our son this summer. Here’s a Lego Phoebe we made a few weeks ago.

It might take me forever to build something, but spending that time with our son sprawled on the floor, searching for just the right piece is more fun than finishing the project. It’s just another opportunity to bask in the moment with this every-changing child…I’m lucky to have it.

Happy Thursday 📚

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