The first day of school

I know I wrote about this last year, but, hey, it's my blog, so I'm going to write about it again this year. If you're a frequent reader, you don't need to worry; this is an all new entry, one I'm writing without looking at last year's.

One of our family traditions is that I take the kids to the first day of school. I've done it since the first school day for each of them, which was pre-pre-kindergarten. I go out of my way to make sure nothing will interfere with this practice; in this case, that included flying on the red-eye Tuesday night and consequently not sleeping.

Today was the latest such trip. It was also the last first day for Sarah before the big transition to college next year.

Each year, this trip wallops me with emotion. When the kids were really young, I held their hands all the way into the classroom, watched as they stared in understandable fear at the new space and the new faces, and felt as if my heart were exploding as I left them. As they grew older, they'd let me walk with them and hold their hands only part of the way, then walk with them but not hold their hands, and finally just drop them off. Love, pride, loss, helplessness--the emotions are so many and so strong it's impossible to list them all. Each trip is different, but each is intense.

Today, for the first time Scott walked into school taller than Sarah, and he wasn't going to upper school for the first time; he was returning, an experienced sophomore. Sarah entered as a senior, a class that at their school gets all the privileges. She stopped at the door to put in her iPod headphones so she'd have the appropriate entrance music. I watched until they vanished, took a deep breath, and drove off, my heart once again in tatters from the sheer inability to contain everything I felt.

I'm always amazed at that aspect of people: our hearts can fill to the bursting point with pain, love, joy, loneliness, emotions of every conceivable kind and in every possible combination, and then they can burst--and yet do it again later, again and again and again.

I love my kids, and I also like them. They're cool people. My mom and brother and sister live far away; staying near one another was never a priority for us. I don't get to choose whether that happens to my kids and me, but I will hope it does not. I will hope for a chance to watch them grow up, continue to marvel at the great people they're becoming, and maybe even help in a few other first days of one sort or another.

I do know one thing for certain: as long as I'm alive, next year I'll take Scott to the first day of his junior year, I'll take Sarah to whatever college she chooses, and my heart will burst on each trip as I leave them.