October 10th, 2009
Day 10: Taking Turns
Early fall, I realize, is wonderful. It is when the haze lifts and the heat breaks and football starts. Still, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able disassociate it from the feeling that it’s time to surrender my freedom and begin a lengthy sentence at Gradetest McHomework State Prison.
As I think yesterday’s post revealed, sixth grade was the hardest of my academic career. Coming in a close second though, was first grade.
In the Bridgeport school district, in Michigan where I spent my early childhood, kindergarten was the, oh, say geology of the grade levels. (All we did was learn to draw the forms of each letter in the alphabet — an activity I excelled in — and to scissor out shapes along dotted lines — an activity which I’m ashamed to admit was the equivalent of…well, whatever the hardest part of geology is, for me. I got several crying-sad-faces on “cut along the lines” assignments, but I eventually mastered this skill, thanks to many well-supervised home practice projects during evenings and weekends.) What I’m trying to say here is Level-K was not treated as a full-fledged participant in my education. We didn’t even do nap time like they do in the beginning years in a lot of elementary schools, but this was only because there was no need, as we were only there for three hours. That’s right, kindergartners only attend school for a half-day.
So you can imagine my bewilderment when, once I began first grade, school went on for twice as long as I thought it would. It seemed like forever. Rather than eat lunch before or after we attended school (depending on whether one was in the morning or afternoon program that week) we consumed our food at school, in this giant room of substitute kitchen tables. This was particularly traumatic. I mean, what were we? Savages?
For months, I came home in tears. Was I really expected to submit to classroom life, for that chunk of time, five days a week?
I was never a fan of school, but somewhere along the way I at least grew accustomed to it and accepted the fact that — save 10 glorious weeks every 12 months — this was what my life was going to be like for the next 12 years and I should probably suck it up and try to get something out of it. It didn’t take me all that long to come to this conclusion, but, up until very recently, I’d remembered this as a struggle I’d made it through all on my own.
Of course this wasn’t the case. When I burst in the front door to our house, there was one person ready to accept at least a hefty portion of the weight that I had to get rid of. I was too bogged down by my problems to reflect on this at the time, but I have no doubt that during the most agonizing parts of my longest days of searching for rooms numbers and trying to comprehend math problems and being forced to socialize, this person was thinking of me and worrying about me and praying for me.
And this one person is now in the middle of the most difficult period of her life (at least in the time that I’ve known her). And, though the fact that I’d ever have to do this came as a total surprise, it’s now my turn to do the thinking and the worrying and the praying.…
And I guess it’s her turn to show me that she can get through this, and come out okay on the other end.
Tags: 14 posts, Family - 1 Comment »
October 12th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Thank you, darlin’ I’m giving it all I’ve got!
Love you, Mom