After weeks of preparing myself for the emotions of "the last first day," the start of my youngest child's senior year was distinctly anticlimactic.
I did make her a hot breakfast, over which she received my bittersweet reminiscences with mildly amused good humor before returning to her room to get dressed. Like an overscheduled but still gracious celebrity, she did allow a few seconds for photos at the door and then she was gone, taking the summer and an 18-year-long portion of my life with her. I think she waved, but maybe not.
I don't know what I expected. A balloon drop? A marching band? To breathlessly put the final touches on her outfit as we smiled at each other in the mirror? My husband and I just looked at each other and smiled.
It's not that my daughter isn't excited about being a senior or aware of its milestone meanings. She and her friends, a tight group since elementary school, have already made memory boxes and begun filming a senior-year documentary and planning their various celebrations — homecoming, birthday parties, proms and, of course, graduation — with no request for parental input.
I've been steeling myself to face an empty nest for months now, but in many ways she is already gone.
It's been years since I've been involved in her first-day wardrobe choices, or pushed a cart through Office Depot, guided by a list provided by the school district. (So many Clorox wipes! So many boxes of Kleenex!) I barely remember the heated arguments over the necessity of a new backpack or having a phone, "like all the other kids." My lunch-making skills are no longer requested; my fashion sense is dismissed. Neither my husband nor I was required to act as human alarm clocks, ticking down the minutes before "we really have to leave."
I shouldn't have been surprised. My children have always chosen to share confidences the way my dogs get the zoomies: suddenly, frantically, and usually when I am on deadline. Still, with the dreadful knowledge that all those ill-timed after-school bursts of "Mom, Mom, MOM" will soon be replaced by silence, I am (note to my editor) trying to embrace even the most ill-timed interruptions.
Well, maybe not when they involve "come quick!" howls of terror over "a tarantula" that turns out to be a very small spider. Because, you know, there will be spiders at college and she's going to have to cope.
After the pitiless grind of junior year, we are all determined to enjoy our family's final days in high school. Yes, they will include the nightmare of college applications as well as the ongoing pressure of AP classes, basketball, community service, and the inevitable welter of extracurriculars — as students are continually told, senior year should be fun, but they're still building those all important "résumés."
But these are the last of the last days of high school for us all, and while a daily balloon drop is not feasible — so messy, and bad for the environment — they are worth celebrating.
Even if only with a hot breakfast, a quick photo, and a French braid.
by Mary McNamara, Los Angeles Times (TNS)
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