The First Day of School [How Do You Find Where You’re Going?]

 

As of tomorrow, my newest Kindergartner! He’s got his birthday crown, a plastic spoon and a butterfly crafted out of paper and a pipe cleaner for security. (Jelly Bean is, as always, just along for the ride.)

“Dear God, please don’t let the popcorn machine be gone!” my 5-year-old sobbed tonight as he said his bedtime prayers. I looked at my husband and rolled my eyes. This child is known for his histrionics (takes after his mama!) and his love of junk food so it was fitting that this was what he was most worried about the night before his very first day of school. (In the same prayer he also said, “Please don’t let mom lose me at the State Fair again” and “Bless me not to die like Jesus on the cross because that’s really gross.” To explain: he lost himself at the State Fair when he ran away and I found him, not to mention it happened over a year ago so I have no idea why it made an appearance in tonight’s prayer. Second, he’s kinda right about Jesus.)

“The popcorn machine won’t be there tomorrow,” I said when he finished. “It was just for the open house.”

His big eyes immediately refilled with tears as he wailed, “But I need it! I don’t know how to find the right door without it!”

My jaded mom heart immediately cracked as I realized that I’d explained to him during the school tour that his kindergarten classroom was the one right down the hall from the popcorn machine. He was terrified that his compass would be gone and without the one landmark he knew he would be lost in a big, scary school. One little boy against the world. With nothing but his trusty popcorn machine to save him.

Do you remember your first day of school? I do. I remember I was too scared to ask the teacher if I could go to the bathroom so instead I just peed right in my little plastic bucket seat. They called my mom and she had to bring me a new pastel dress with a new pair of brown ribbed 80’s tights. I remember feeling bitterly disappointed in myself.

But chances are your first day of school was a very long time in the past and yet I think we all hang on to some popcorn machines. Even as adults we hang on to these markers that tell us who we are and where we’re going. Even when they never gave us the right answers in the first place.

My weight is my popcorn machine. For so long – from grade school, even – I believed that that number defined me and without it I was lost. It took on a life of its own as I imbued it with so much more meaning than ever rightly belonged to it. It turns out that there is really only one thing your weight can tell you about yourself: how much you weigh. It can’t tell you if you are beautiful. Or if you are a good person. Or if you are trustworthy. Or smart. Or good at sports. Or lovable. It can’t tell you what kind of job you’ll be good at (unless you are a Victoria’s Secret model). It can’t even tell you if you look good in your jeans. What a stupid popcorn machine that is.

And yet I’ve let my weight tell me all these things about myself and more. Not weighing myself for the past year(ish) has forced me to pick new markers to tell me who I am and where I’m going. These new measures are much less concrete than a three digit number and sometimes I’m tempted to go back to the simplicity of judging every part of me by that single standard. But tonight I heard myself answer my son. “Honey, you don’t need the popcorn machine! You have everything you need inside of you – you are smart and capable and you know how to find your way without it because you’ve done it before. You’ll be just fine. And until you are sure of that, I will walk in there with you. I will hold your hand but you will lead the way.”

Do you remember your first day of school? Do you have a “popcorn machine” you’ve had to learn to navigate without? Have you ever tried talking to yourself as if you were a child that you loved? (Geneen Roth first introduced me to this and I’ve found it to be very powerful. We forget how to be gentle and nurturing with ourselves as well as we are with small children.)

24 Comments

  1. So your family is gorgeous. And I know you don’t post the pictures to get that response (or at least I doubt that’s the goal), but really, you are so blessed. And I love Jelly Bean’s hair. I sort of wish I could rock a purple bow at work and still be taken seriously.

    This is actually my first September since I was 2 years old not being in school! I don’t remember my first day of school, because I was so young- I went to a Montessori school, which is why I started so early. It only took another 22 years for me to actually finish. I’m not sad to be done though, because I think I was getting a little too old for the shenanigans of the undergrads.

    Related to the above point, I think my biggest ‘marker’ to let me know that I was ‘good enough’ over the years was my grades- now I’m just sort of constantly hoping that I’m meeting expectations at work. Apparently I am so far….but the fear of failing is pretty persistent. I’m really hoping it dissipates soon, but that seems unlikely. Apparently most lawyers don’t feel confident in what they do for the first 5 years or so. Hopefully I’m confident in what I do by the time I’m 29. Fingers crossed? Maybe I should say 30 just to be safe?

    The last time I spoke to myself like a child was when I was climbing the steps to the top of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Those stairs are REALLY narrow (if you haven’t been- google it, they are claustrophobia inducing), and it was freaking me out. A lot. I was with some guy friends and their shoulders were so broad they had to sort of duck and hunch to the side to squeeze up the stairs. That did not help. I just kept saying to myself “It’s okay, you’re okay, people have been doing this for hundreds of years, you’ll be fine, I’m sure they have a method of dealing with people who can’t make it up or down the 90 gabillion stairs in 45C weather” the entire time. It was really scary. I don’t think I’d do it again (but I’m glad I did it once).

    People really must have been a lot smaller during the renaissance, because I’m not that broad and my shoulders still skimmed both walls.

  2. What a touching post, Charlotte.

    I used to get so nervous before the first day of school and worried I wouldn’t be able to find my classes and that I’d get lost. I think I was scarred for life because one time when I was in 1st grade I accidentally got on the wrong bus and ended up wayyyyy out in the country and the bus driver had to bring me back to school and try to figure out where I lived. Traumatic when you’re 6!

    I am glad you’ve come so far this past year. And thank you, as always, for your amazing friendship 🙂
    xo

  3. Kids like their landmarks! I suppose we all do really.
    He probably sees himself as the only one who wont know where anything will be as kids tend to see it from their little world only . Teachers being repetitive beings ,will most likely tell everyone where everything is,a dozen times over.

  4. Awww… love your response to his popcorn machine angst! For him, seems like YOU are a popcorn machine, but the good kind that’s always there pointing the way and maybe even has crunchy kettlecorn in it which is so much better than the regular kind.

    OK, so that analogy didn’t work so well. You are much better at this metaphorical stuff.

    It’s great that you’ve let go of a number on the scale as your popcorn machine! Seems like you have so many wonderful achievements you don’t need that little bit of trivia to define you.

  5. Tomorrow will be interesting for our family as it will be the first day of school where we know why our middle child has struggled with reading despite having a high IQ.

    Two weeks ago he was diagnosed with phonological dyslexia or decoding dyslexia.

    Now we get to wrestle with a school that doesn’t believe that dyslexia is anything other than a diagnosis that the child is having trouble reading…..

  6. I love this line “It turns out that there is really only one thing your weight can tell you about yourself: how much you weigh. ”

    And yes, I speak to myself like a child all the time. I still think I am one, after all.

  7. OMG, thank you! I thought I was the only child that consciously peed their pants in school. In third grade, we were taking a test and the nun instructed us that we were “not allowed to get up during the test, for ANY reason”. So, always one to take nuns literally, I peed in my seat. I remember her laughing when I explained what happened. I did not think it was funny and thought the instructions should have been clearer.

  8. Another beautiful post! I think, as parents, we get so caught up in everything that Needs To Be Done for the first day of school that we forget how terrifying it can be for our kids. (Unless they’re my kids. The first time I dropped them off at preschool, separately, they immediately went for the toys and forgot all about me, waving my teary goodbye in the corner.)
    I think my popcorn machine, in all honesty, has been my anxiety. I may not be as high-strung as I used to be, but a constant, low-level hum of anxiety is nearly always present. When it isn’t, I feel weird and immediately, subconsciously, search for something to feel anxious about. I’m like a human smartphone, constantly searching for a signal. Only my signal is Worry.
    Great. Now I’m worried about how much I worry.
    In all seriousness, I need to keep reminding myself to speak to myself as a child. Because that terrified, anxious little girl is very much alive inside of me.

  9. I do not remember my first school day, or much of school at all. But when I read your post, I realized that I always defined myself using a measure. In my case it was not the weight, but the grades. If I did not get an A, I was a looser. Only straight A’s made me feel OK, for a little while, before I started worrying about the next test, the next year or whatever.
    Perhaps it is the same mechanism behind. Perhaps I have some kind of grade disorder.

  10. Beautiful post, Charlotte. Your response to your son was so touching, it brought tears to my eyes because it’s so true.

    And because you mentioned Geneen Roth, I have to thank you again for being the one to introduce me to her books. I haven’t been able to completely break the scale habit, but for the month of September, I’ve vowed to only weigh myself the first and last day of the month. I’m putting the IE to work by not logging calories, either, and it’s been awesome even though I’m only a week into it.

  11. I remember crying for ages when my mom tried to leave the first day of kindergarten and hanging on to her so she couldn’t. I knew I was moving in just a couple months and I was getting a baby brother any day so can’t imagine where the anxiety came from! I remember loving school after we moved though.

    Yeah, my weight has really been that marker for me too. Grades as well but weight has been especially on my mind lately as I struggle with some of those issues cropping up again. I’ve been fighting the urge to weigh myself and have that daily assurance that I’m okay. So far though I haven’t given in so that’s good!

  12. Don’t have a lot of time to comment today, but just wanted to say how much I LOVE this post! Thanks for always nailing it, Charlotte 🙂

  13. Love this post, Charlotte (and so many others!) Your words to your son were perfect.

    I was struck by your comment that we don’t talk to ourselves with gentle, nurturing words often enough. I’m paraphrasing, but am very guilty of this. Thanks for making me think about this a little.

  14. I have a picture to remind me of my 1st day of school. I am in this pretty frilly pink dress (and of course, the frilly pink socks and mary jane shoes), and I’m too short to reach the first step onto the bus. So the picture is of my backside, pulling myself up onto the bus, and the bus driver laughing. It’s cute and embarrassing, all at the same time.

  15. We don’t have to worry about that yet. But I will so keep this post in mind when the time comes.

  16. First, how cute are those kiddos!!!!

    You really know how to capture the moment & the thoughts. Like you, weight defined me my whole life. In a way, is still does. Yes, I like myself better but I still want to look fit & strong & age scares me with the changes I know will come. Being fat as a kid, the weight really defined me & how shy I was… What you said to your son was PERFECT!

  17. What a wonderful post. Another one to keep me thinking…

    Thank you!

  18. Today was the last first day for my youngest (before college). It hit me very hard but my husband is fine – he is excited about the girls growing up but I just want to hit pause for a while. I don’t remember my first day of school but my Mom tells me that my dog would walk with me and then stay at school until I left at the end of the day. She did that for the first few weeks until she knew I would come home safely.

  19. What a great mom response! You have clearly been practicing this job longer than I have.
    My self-talk falls mostly under Lindsay’s style.
    Kirsten said my comment before I could.
    Barb’s made me laugh out loud.
    And I don’t know whose was more poingnant, Va’s or Heather’s.
    Your posts are always good right down to the footer 🙂

  20. I am working on talking to myself in the same way I talk to my kids, in a gentle loving forgiving way. I love the way kids will latch onto seemingly random things and put so much meaning into them. Then after you figure out their logic it makes a lot of sense. Whereas when I try to figure out the logic of my thinking, it doesn’t make much sense (ie: how my weight is tied to my self-worth).

  21. Of all the back-to-school blogs I’ve read, this one is my favorite. You’ve nailed it. And good for you… you are doing the work for yourself, and it’s making you a better parent. You gotta love Geneen Roth.

  22. This is post is sweet. I love what you said to your son!

  23. Char – I LOVE YOU!