Thursday, September 16, 2010

Back to School Nite

This is my son's school's back to school nite. The night you shuffle from room to room with a few hundred other parents and listen to the teacher's class rules for 12 minutes and then shuffle to another teacher's room. I go every year and tonight will be the final "Back to School Nite" for me.

It is funny that it is also the night you scope out other parents and see how they have fared for the year. Have they gained weight, changed their hair, gotten skinnier, lost more hair, gotten a paunchy stomache. Its human nature to measure ourselves against the current society we are in.

I of course will be sporting store bought hair and less eyelashes and eyebrows. I will have to find a great lipstick color to contrast.

I will be reflective tonight. Thinking about all the past "Back to School nites" and thinking about my son going off to college and how the whole dynamic of the family will shift. I hope I wont feel useless and put aside. I take all these "mommy jobs" pretty serious.

Thank goodness for technology and Skype and texting and cell phones. I dont know how our parents did it when we flew the nest. No contact. Just pay phones.

I wont miss "Back to School Nite" and all its scoping out of parents and teachers and snickering and "looks" but I will miss the feeling of purpose and connectivity I feel when I go scope out the "other home" of my son for so many hours a day.

*sigh*

2 comments:

Kayte said...

It was my last back to school night this year as well. I am starting to count down the "lasts" for this final year with Matt at home...I don't think I am going to do empty nest very well at all.

pixielyn said...

Awwwwwwww Kayte, I'm so there with you as you know... If I'm getting THIS choked up now how am I going to be when he ISNT even here? .. the other day randomly, I thought about then he's away at school and I walk by his room how I am going to feel? And I started bawling. I know its a right of passage and its how its supposed to be but it certainly doesnt make it easier.
*sigh*
Good thing we can tell each other how we are feeling and know we arent alone!!!!