Today was my five year old son’s first full day of kindergarten. Despite two years of preschool, this is his first multiple-grades establishment, and it’s both thrilling and nerve-wracking to watch him walk in among hundreds of kids all milling about. And as proud of him as I am, I’m also staving off a lingering sorrow at what used to be.
I remember the first day of preschool, and having to leave my son behind. It felt absolutely horrible to watch his face cloud up as he realized I wouldn’t be staying with him. The preschool teachers, veterans of such scenes, tried to distract him with promises of toys and stories, while glancing at me above his head, mouthing the words “Go on, go on!” For they knew that the only remedy to leaving a loved one is time; and the sooner begun, the better. But that day, we both cried. I felt like the most base betrayer of his trust, a feeling only slightly mirrored today.
And if I was expecting a similar occurrence for kindergarten, my fears on that count were unfounded — my boy simply said goodbye and turned away to join his classmates. Far easier than I’d dreamed, yet also harder than anticipated; didn’t my son still need me?
Of course I’m savvy enough to be aware that our weeks of prepping him have helped with his easy separation, not to mention that one of his preschool friends is in the same class as he is. I want him to look forward to school. I hope that he gets excited thinking about all the things he’ll learn, the friends he’ll make, the experiences he’ll have. I just didn’t reckon with my feelings of time slipping away — that only yesterday he needed me to feed him, dress him, read to him … and now he does it all on his own.
The passage of time is at once a blessing and a curse. As my son grows, I’ll only be more and more proud of the man he’s becoming, but I’ll miss the boy he once was, with his simple joys and curiosities and fears. I have to make sure I’m one hundred percent present with him, so I won’t later regret a single moment spent worrying over something that seems so important yet so transient in the long run. We only get this day once in our life; we need to make it count.
