My daughter Lucy is twenty six months old, which in non-parent speak means two years and change. About fifteen minutes ago, I dropped her off at pre-school for the first time in her life.
I consider myself a fairly stoic person. I don't cry at funerals or weddings, I mostly ignore the Hallmark© Holidays, I prefer long naps to long walks on the beach and I pretend to be an emotionless lummox more often than not. It's just the way I am.
Occasionally, however, I'm caught off guard by a swell of emotion strong enough to signify the import of a particular moment.
Lucy is starting school today.
As I walked the half mile from our house to the pre-school, those words rang in my ears. How can it be that this newborn baby is old enough to be in school? My god, when did I become an actual parent?
As I walked uphill towards the school, I felt a mixture of pride and an unexpected sadness.
I thought of playground fights and schedules and snack time. I thought of the beginning of a routine that will change, but remain eerily similar for the next sixteen years. I flashed back to lunchbox days and short school nights and homework and panic about not what happened in the classroom, but what happened in between. Bullies and crushes and five cent milk and construction paper and getting stuck with the green handled rubbery left handed scissors. I remembered the smell of paste and the artwork displayed on the refrigerator that was not good, but perfect. I thought of the days when everything that happened at school was of the utmost imortance and I was suddenly insanely jealous of my little girl with her whole life in front of her and a good excuse to have no idea where she's going or what to make of it all. After 34 years, my excuses for the same are running out. I imagined nights of tears when nothing I say will console a young girl with her heart broken by some typical boy or heartless friend for the first time. I thought of rulers and crayons and cubbies and gold stars and recess and finding my place in the world. Finding her place in the world. Figuring life out.
I wheeled her into the office of the school and signed a few forms. They were waiting for Lucy, who was oblivious to the adventure she was about to begin. She knows nothing of notes passed in class, nor pulled hair on the slide, nor the cattiness of adolescent girls. She colored in the weathered coloring book on the table in the office and waited patiently for Daddy to take her to the next place in her day.
"Lucy is going to Room 11," the nice woman told me as she took my paperwork.
"Thanks," I told her as I turned the empty stroller around.
Lucy is starting school today.
"Are you ready Lucy?" I asked her.
She looked up at me with eyes that are filled with trust and love and not an ounce of cynicism or bitterness or experience or fear.
"Ready, Daddy," she said with a smile.
"Let's go to school!" I told her, trying to sound excited.
"O-KAY!" she said as she threw down her crayon and climbed out of the chair.
We walked out the office door towards Room 11. The air was crisp and clear after a few nights of steady rain, and we passed a small playground spattered with sand, and still damp. Playgrounds turn into fields and fields turn into soccer games and homecoming dances and graduations and suddenly there's a moment when you're sitting in your chair watching your newborn baby graduate and you wonder, "How did I become an adult so fast?"
In Room 11, I gave all of Lucy's items to the teacher in the class: diapers, some wet wipes, a change of clothes, a blanket, and her lunchbox. I worried that she'd be shy or unwilling to socialize right away. Part of me hoped that she'd scream and kick and demand to go home. I would have thanked the teacher and told her we'd try again tomorrow. Instead, Lucy ran right to the wooden kitchen set and got to work on cooking an imaginary gourmet meal. I wanted to linger to make sure that everything was okay, but it was obvious to me that she was just fine. I felt a pang of helplessness; not for that moment or that day, but for all the times I can't stay; for all the times she's going to have to move forward in her life bravely without me; for all of the times life seems to make no sense, or be unfair or overwhelming or scary; for the rest of her life that she has to find her place in the world, even as her Daddy still tries to do the same.
Lucy started school today.
As I walked home, I realized that being a parent means letting go a little more each day. I told myself that it was the crisp air causing my eyes to water, but I know better. I have knots in my stomach for the years ahead in Lucy's youth, even as I mourn the passing of my own.
