Did you know I'm writing a book?

You do now.

It’s a book of essays and it’s been a dream of mine for as long as I can remember. A few things (children) made me pivot a little on this dream, but I’m still here, still writing. And, if I’m being honest, they’re the reason I have so much to write about.

If you’re receiving this email, you are getting a sneak peak into one of the essays from my book. Feel free to email me, comment, or share. PS - there’s another book in the works, so stay tuned.

Thank you so much for reading my work and being a part of the community I’m trying to build. Now, get your cup of coffee and relax.

Kindergarten 

My son started Kindergarten this year. Dressed in blue sweatpants and a Mario t-shirt, he lifted his mostly empty backpack across his shoulder blades and stood on our porch while I took pictures. I packed his lunch, a turkey and cheese sandwich, Goldfish, a fruit pouch, a water bottle, and a love note that he couldn’t read yet. It said “Have a great first day, Ben! I love you.” Only I drew a heart instead of the word “love,” so he would have a little clue as to what my message was. I figured a teacher would help him read it. 

I took pictures because that’s what you do on this day. I can’t remember if I was still in my pajamas or if I was holding my coffee cup or even if my husband was standing beside me. I couldn’t be present for the pictures because this day is too big to be present for. 

I started feeling the enormity of this event about a week before school began. When I went to plan day trips, like I usually do on weekdays with my two kids, I realized that I couldn’t take him to the children’s museum that Wednesday because he wouldn’t be here. He’d be in a classroom. He would be in a classroom every day of the week now. I had intended to go, even told him we would, but time slipped right by. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, they’re closed, and Friday is more of an at-home night for us and before I knew it, school was on Monday. It isn’t like before. Not like what I’m used to. There is an end now, a date that separates the before and the after. Time is no longer an endless road for us.

The school is one floor with miles of hallways. Door after door of classroom teachers in between painted white cinder blocks, inviting students to join their worlds inside. Desk clusters, work stations, name tags, Smartboards, and routines await my son each morning as he steps inside. I am nowhere to be seen because they don’t need me there. 

When my son was a baby, before I even thought about having another child, I would wake up in the morning and ask him what we should do that day. Some days it felt like an adventure, thinking of all the places I could take him, how he might react, what sort of cute things he would do. Other days it felt like minutes stretched into years and it was only because of meals that the hours would be broken up. Time has morphed again for me. For him. It’s maybe one of the hardest things about motherhood, how time changes.  For the times I could’ve been calmer, nicer, funner, and now he is gone, for another adult to listen to, have fun with.

My daughter started preschool this year, too. Her school is in the basement of a Presbyterian church in a small town just outside of ours. I drive her there on Tuesdays and Thursdays and wait in line with the other mothers and their younger siblings; babies slung on hips, infants glued to legs, backpacks too big for the sweet three year olds that carry them. I am still in this world. I am still in the throes of early childhood; the sweet exhaustion of being everything and nothing at the same time. In her preschool, my daughter paints with brushes, pastes with Elmer’s, listens to books on soft rugs, and counts the days of the month. I have a name here. I know my way around the stations, and I can come in if I want to. I feel as if I could curl up on my own rug and listen to stories and play with sand and pretend to be a child again. 

I go to the park while they are both at school. It’s a regular park on our circuit, with two jungle gyms, one for older kids, one for the littles. A big sandbox takes up the front part and swings outline the back. There’s a tennis and basketball court off to the side that my kids like to walk around in and remind me we didn’t bring the ball to play with, and a walking path that skirts the entire park. 

I park my car, the only one in the lot, and walk in circles on the paved track. Past the wilting butterfly garden, the falling leaves, I think about how good it feels to be alone, how strange it is to not see the both of them for hours. Preschool isn't that long, only two and a half hours, but Kindergarten is a full six and a half. A transition period, a warning, really, would’ve helped me for this enormous change; for all the feelings that come up. What a concoction of shock and guilt and relief all at once. I suddenly feel extra guilty about all the times I lost my temper. That time my son wouldn’t stop pushing down my daughter and I screamed at him with thunderous power. I feel regret for all the fun times not had before schooling began. The time I could’ve taken him, alone, to the diner or a park, just he and I, but instead took time to myself. It came so quickly. Being at home with two small children gives a mother just enough time to maybe string together a coherent sentence let alone plan an entire day of fun. I feel as if I could’ve done better. I feel jealous of all the things that school can effortlessly provide; special classes, assemblies, trips, other classmates. Things that would take me all of my resources to just pull off one. 

I have become obsessed with homeschooling. Even before school began I started following homeschool accounts on Instagram, joined private homeschooling Facebook groups in the area, and printed out mini lessons to test on the kids. I made statements like “This life we’re living is so separate,” and “I feel like I gave up my son to the system.” I don’t think I’m necessarily wrong, in fact, I think I’m perfectly correct, but the biggest flaw with my homespun plan is this: I’m pretty sure my son likes school. 

I cling desperately to the idea that I can curate my children’s environment the exact way they need to thrive. I didn’t love school and I wish I could have a second chance at it. I even came close to convincing my husband by creating this utopian manifesto that our family should follow. Who says we need to follow “the man’s” rules? Why does our son need to be gone so long? Is he learning our values at school? When do I get to decide what he does during the day? This is all done for me? My job is done? I just give him over to the state now? Why does this feel so wrong? What in God’s name am I supposed to do now? At times, many times, it feels like motherhood is too much. 

But this is too much, too. 

There is a stretch of the path that runs next to the busy road, only separated by a wire fence. Walking that stretch is loud and jumbles my thoughts as the trucks and vans and cars whip by me. I feel the first seeds of irrelevancy, walking this path. I touch my stomach, but of course nothing is there. Nothing growing. Nothing hoped for. Just my own organs, my own skin. My own body, growing older, not something new. How can they have their own lives already? What has happened to mine?

My children demanded my life and then they got their own. 

And these feelings make me all of a sudden miss the loud crickets near my grandfather’s house and the Doritos my mom bought me when I had colds and the feeling of blowing bubbles on a slow afternoon and the smell of snow and the sound of the fireplace when my dad lit it for the first time each season and also the slow strum of him tuning his guitar. The taste of strawberry Nesquik on a hot summer day before fishing with my grandfather, before caring about time at all. 

It’s almost time to pick up my daughter. She’ll be waiting outside for me, standing in line, singing the goodbye song with her teacher. When she sees me she’ll smile big and wave like we’ve been separated for days. I will feel at home again in my body, our plans getting mapped before me in an instant. We will have lunch, then watch a cartoon together, then play and have dinner. There I am. This is what I do.

My son’s bus will drop him off at the corner of our house, and he will see me standing there, a constant figure, relentless in my devotion, and he won’t realize it yet, but maybe someday he’ll remember the feeling of warmth when returning home. In his face, unnoticeable to anyone but me, is a slight lift of the corner of his mouth. He hides it, this small twitch, but I see it, even for the brief moment. I know he sees me, maybe even is happy to see me. It helps. I never know the mood he will be in when he gets home, who he has met at school, what did or didn’t upset him during his day. But I will be here, waiting for him, a snack in the living room, my heart already open to his needs. His sister’s face is pressed against the glass door, anticipating his arrival, mimicking telepathically, the way I secretly feel inside.