On Letting Go

First time on the bus

These days I am not-so-peacefully practicing letting go of those tendrils twisting around my oldest child who is off to school full time now. It's healthy for both of us I keep reminding myself. But in those long long hours when he is no longer here, I feel lost and ungrounded.

I've become so accustomed to constantly checking in on him to make sure he is safe and well and happy as he could be. Not only that, but that he is operating in the most balanced way. You see, there is this particular combination of "external criteria" that is needed in order to keep my boy in tip top operating shape. I have refined and tweaked and tested and proved this specific recipe over the last 5.75 years. I know what makes him happiest. I know exactly how much sitting, and electronics, and sugar, and creative play, and interaction, and encouragement, and mental stimuli, and food timing is needed in order to make his spirit shine!

Not only that, but I know how he learns best. I know how to make him laugh and what sorts of stories he likes best, and how to get him out of a grumpy mood the quickest.

I keep choking on the feelings of wanting to "rescue" him from the ultra-serious-table-sitting-practicing-proper-behavior-all-day-public-school-prison. How much more fun and wonderful and nourishing homeschooling would be! But then I remember the bills racking up.

And darn him, he keeps getting up in the morning all excited about riding the bus to school. Not only that but be has best friends already whom he is excited to see. Come on kid, its only been two weeks. How could you possibly have best friends already. But he insists. The one who he giggles about and chums the most with happens to be a girl. A girl. What, a girlfriend already! Pfft. What's she got on me. I grew you in my belly for goodness sake!

Yes, he is doing just fine. He seems excited and enchanted by all the wonders a big American elementary school has to offer.   

Me, not so much. I am disenchanted. Mostly unenthused  by the learning methods of most public schools (sit here and absorb this information, do some work sheets, be quiet and behave). Seemingly they don't seemed to have evolved much since I went to school. Actually, his school seems so focused on academia. It's kindergarten for petes sake! I'm also disenchanted by how long the school day is in our district.

But I dare say I am so very impressed by how confidently and securely my son went off to school. For example, the first time on the bus. He had been going to school for a week already (not on the bus) and knew how to get into the school from two different directions. When the bus let him off at another end of the school, instead of following everyone in through the doors and down the hall, he decided to walk around the front of the school to go in the main entrance. It was locked, so he went in another way and eventually found his way to his classroom just before the bell.

Weren't you scared or nervous not knowing where you were? I asked him.

He claims he wasn't at all.

Me you ask, wasn't I such a confident, making best friends in the first week and loving the big school sort of kindergartner?

Um. Well, pretty much the opposite.

Yep. That's me rockin the 70'ies look in KG.

So if I did anything right as a parent, it was that I did not pass on my extremely shy and introverted as a child genes. (That and my ridiculous overbite). You are welcome kid.

Now if you will excuse me, I must go off and plan a wedding ;)

Namaste
The Domestic Yogi