Hold on! Let’s just hold on one minute!
Because I need to get this straight. I need to consult the calendar. I’m not sure it has totally sunk down into the recesses of my spongy brain, where actual working cells still live and breathe. I don’t think – as many times as my wife has told me … and she has told me a lot! – this fact has completely registered with me.
So, hold on … let’s work this out: We’re somewhere in the middle of May … haven’t fully figured out when, but somewhere. May is, if memory serves, traditionally the end of the school year. My daughter’s middle school has said this last week was it for new assignments in their online-learning environment. And this next week, which is when exams would have been if not canceled, is kind of the last week. At least, I think … scratching my chin … if I heard all this correctly.
Anyway, forget the details and complex calendar-ing. My point is this: The end of my daughter’s eighth grade year is upon us.
Which really means: The end of her middle school CAREER is just days away.
Which really means: GASP! GULP! RETCH! … the start of her HIGH SCHOOL CAREER is … actually I don’t know … I better check with my wife … BASICALLY JUST DAYS AWAY!
Which really means: IT’S OFFICIALLY TIME TO START FREAKIN’ OUT!!! Because … WHERE DID THIS COME FROM!?!
In all the hootenanny and hullabaloo we’ve been dealing with, I straight up forgot my child – the wee little one (don’t tell her I called her that) – is no longer going to be a middle schooler. I never really understood that term, by the way. “Elementary,” I get. “High” school kind of makes sense. But “middle” just sounds like someone said, “So, what should we do with them during these three years that the government won’t let us work them in the salt mines? I got it! Let’s stick them in “middle” school so they don’t set fires or tip the goats.”
Focus, Brian. Focus on what’s important. Like … IT’S OFFICIALLY TIME TO START FREAKIN’ OUT!!!
My daughter will soon be a freshman in high school. (Typing this literally caused me to lose all feeling in my fingers, and I drooled down the side of my face.)
It seems impossible, like solving the most complex of algebraic equations (I mean, whoever understood a² + b² was c²? Clearly the answer was 7.) Impossible that we could be here already. Impossible that we could be making this major transition when it seemed like we were just entering kindergarten yesterday. Impossible because something about high school doesn’t really seem like school. No, it seems like something different, something bigger, something more transformative. Like loading an astronaut into a rocket that will carry them at enormous speed far, far away. A journey that they don’t return from … by choice!
Everyone tells you to worry about high school because your kid will turn into a demon and crash your car and figure out that your contactless credit cards easily buy booze or the most expensive candy at the movie theater. But all I seem to worry about is how quickly everything is moving.
T-minus 10 minutes and counting …
That so much of this feels like the final stage. The part of parenthood that you knew was on the horizon, but never spent any time thinking about it because it was too far away. Kind of like debt or retirement. Don’t spend any real time worrying about it because you’re sure some computer genius will come along and solve it all with an app.
But this is REAL now, man! There’s no escaping it. There’s no avoiding it. And there’s sure no slowing it down.
I guess that’s the sad reality and the hardest part to accept as this year comes to a close. Luckily, the last few months have taught me you can’t take anything for granted anymore. You can’t skip a moment or put things off. And you sure as better appreciate each and every second you have, no matter what the circumstances.
Because we’re in the pre-launch now, baby, and the wee little one (don’t tell her I called her that) is getting a whole lot closer to firing up those rocket engines. (Unless she does as poorly in algebra as I did. Then maybe she has one more year …)