'Golden Rule Days...'

Even those of us who don't have kids can't help but feel a little pang on the first day back to school. No matter how old I get, watching the little ones weighed down by back-packs and the anticipation (or dread) of letting go of summer and settling back into an old routine - or perhaps a new experience they are learning for the first time - makes me anxious on their behalf and a wee bit wistful. Will they like their teachers? Will they find a friend? Will new cliques have formed over the summer months - ones they are no longer welcomed into? So much to cope with - adjusting to the social order that school invariably entails which is its own challenging curriculum. The moms I know write anxiously about their hopes for their little ones understanding inherently from their own experiences - the land-mines that can go off, the hurts and scars - fears and insecurities that they cannot shield them from regardless of how carefully they have prepared. Even stronger feelings seem to accompany those moms with older children - heading off to middle school or high school for the first time with the many layers of drama those pre-teen/teenage years can bring - knowing time moves so much more slowly from the eyes of youth and mistakes feel that much weightier when perspective hasn't softened the view. Still there is an air of excitement, even hope, on the first day when nothing is too taxing and the real work is yet to begin - a communion of new beginnings and a blank slate ready to be filled.