Even though PunditGirl started first-grade today, and we are past the “official” start of fall since the Labor Day weekend is over, I refuse to give up on summer until September 23.
I’m a die hard … as far as I’m concerned, it is still summer until that autumnal equinox happens. But it’s hard to be happy about a few waning days of my favorite season and a few more afternoons at the pool, when you’re melancholy about your little girl growing up too fast and when your best friend, who you would share these special life moments with, is gone.
So there are lots of tears this morning — tears I wasn’t really expecting. Sure, I cried last year when PunditGirl started kindergarten, but that was the big transition for all of us — the transition to big girl school. PunditGirl was excited today, wearing her new sparkly sweater that her big sister bought her in NYC last week, but she wouldn’t look at me as I left her new classroom. A summer full of quality mommy time was hard for her to give up and I sensed she thought I was, on some level, abandoning her.
But PunditGirl’s transition to being a “grader” (as she and her six-year-old friends call themselves) and the transition for me to being without the friend I counted on most for 25 years, has really hit me hard today. She’s the one I would have called this afternoon (with the four hour time difference between the East Coast and Alaska, she would have killed me if I had gotten her up at 4:30 a.m. to whine about my first-grade separation issues!) But I would have heard that Marjorie was happy that it was September and that the “hot” weather in Alaska was departing for the cool days she longed for. She would be looking forward to the first snow (if it hasn’t happened already) and would be heading out to her favorite Anchorage coffee shack (they really are shacks!) for her extra shot cappuccino, no foam, that she would make last well into the afternoon.
I can’t stop thinking about her empty house and that all the things she loved are there without her — the cat she named after her favorite uncle (who obviously has a new home now), the art she collected, the quilts she made, the furniture she built herself and most of all, the bog outside her window and the mountains she loved.
OK, so I’m rambling here. But it’s a hard transition day and I’ll just have to get through it.
September 6th, 2006 at 5:25 pm
Sorry you’ve had such a rough day. It’s amazing how these days you don’t expect to be rough can get to you — I lost my grandmother 2 years ago, and it really hit me on an odd day that wasn’t her birthday or a holiday.
I hope your daughter’s first day as a “grader” went well. Take care of yourself.
September 6th, 2006 at 6:03 pm
Thanks, Nancy. I appreciate the thoughts. Rachel had a great day, but it was hard to concentrate on work. But I know it will be better tomorrow.