Happy first day of school, y’all! My wish for you today is that your coffee stays hot, your kids don’t fight, the car line goes fast, and the day isn’t as chaotic as you might have expected it to be when you woke up this morning. I know lots of us have been counting down the days for the return of school so we can get back to normal schedules and settle into the routine again.
For some of us, though, maybe you’re not quite ready for school to start back today, and if that’s you, I see you.
Maybe you’re like me, and a chronic illness has flared up suddenly and insurance is denying the meds you need. You’ve prepared for school to start back, you’ve gone and bought the school supplies for the kids, but there was more you wanted to do before getting into the swing of things again. You’re doing the best you can, but it doesn’t feel like enough.
Maybe you’re ready for school in theory, but because you work full time, it hasn’t felt like summer for you. Your kids might be complaining that summer’s gone and they didn’t get to do the things they wanted or go on enough vacations or just get to the pool often. Maybe you’re happy school’s coming back, but you also feel like you let your kids down even while you’re keeping everything afloat during a busy summer.
Maybe you’ve had a tough summer because things have gone down all wrong. There was a car wreck and you’re still recovering. There’s someone in the family going on hospice, and you have to handle both the mundane of getting kids sorted for school and the extra tasks that you’ve had heaped on you. There’s a new job you’re still trying to orient for while the kids ask you a million questions about classrooms and teachers.
Regardless of why this year feels like a struggle, if you aren’t ready for school to start back, then just know you’re not alone.
When Facebook fills up with dozens of “first day of school” pictures and you realize you forgot to snap one, don’t guilt trip yourself. You can take that picture tomorrow and pretend. When your phone fills up with calendar notifications and messages from teachers about the upcoming things you need to do, it’s okay to take a breath and set it down long enough to get your bearings.
If you’re already stressing about the complaints from your child who totally doesn’t want to go back to school, you’re in good company. If you know your child’s going into a space they’re not comfortable — for whatever reason — and you wish you could give them everything they need to be confident, then know you’re still a fantastic parent, even when you can’t do everything for your child.
Sometimes your best is Pinterest-perfect parenting with a side of social media bragging. Sometimes it’s just digging out the last pair of clean underwear and making a mental note to wash your kids’ clothes before tossing them their backpacks and rushing to the car. Both of those things are fine because both of those things are human.
It’s easy to look at others or even review our own expectations for how things should be and get lost in how our reality isn’t matching up. It’s harder to give ourselves grace when life has been hard or our bodies aren’t behaving or the summer flew by too fast and we disappointed our kids or ourselves.
If you’re not ready for school to start, I see you, and I hope you’ll give yourself some grace today. Maybe grab an extra cup of coffee or splurge on a latte. Maybe take an extra few minutes to sit and relax in your favorite spot. Maybe just take a minute to write out how things are going, even if you just crumple the page later and throw it away. Every little bit of grace matters when you’re running low on energy, spoons, or emotional bandwidth.
Sometimes showing up means snapping the first day pictures and having the kids all dressed in matching outfits and standing in a perfectly orderly line with cheesy smiles intact for the newsfeed. Sometimes showing up means a bowl of cereal made it to the table in the ten minutes you had before whisking the kids to the car and you only have time to shake your head when you notice your child’s socks don’t match. However showing up looks for you today, just keep doing what you can and let the rest fall into place how it will.
