All too quickly, we are back in school. I have that haunted feeling of someone waking up early after a long night, a defeated sense of, “God, I just went to sleep and now the alarm is going off.” This is both a metaphor for how short the summer was and a literal whimper of exhaustion. Ruby’s school was in session until June 20 and started on Monday, and I am seriously lacking in back-to-school enthusiasm.
It’s not that I don’t love her school. Her teacher, at least thus far, seems fantastic, and the parents and kids at Morris Jeff have long felt like family to me, so seeing them again is both refreshing and comforting.
But Georgia just started a preschool program at St. Martin’s, and her adjustment has taken up a lot of my emotional energy, and we are moving, which is taking up most of my physical energy – and the result is that last night found me having to draw on deep reserves of strength to have the will to even fold a basket of towels. I did it. I even put them away. But the idea of downloading chevron-printed templates from Etsy to document Ruby’s first day of school or putting together a goody basket for the teacher … they’re just not in the cards. Instead, I took a blurry iPhone picture of Ruby in the hallway in front of her classroom and sent her teacher a series of neurotic emails about the fact that there is another Ruby in the class. It’s the best I can manage.
Maybe soon I will embrace the return to the routine, but right now, I am longing for summer – and for the chance to keep hitting the snooze button.
