“But there are advantages to being elected President. The day after I was elected, I had my high school grades classified Top Secret.” – Ronald Reagan
I don’t know if this happens to all of you, but it happens to me – every fall. When I’m out and about seeing all the school supplies overstocked in all the stores I have this URGE, to delve into buying cool new stuff from art supplies to backpacks. It’s a bit of a curse sometimes.
Now that my “children” are no longer “kids”, no school supplies for me. Sniff. But I find myself still being terribly distracted by all the colors and cool stuff for Back to School!
When I was homeschooling and in a position of teaching the stuff I learned in school, I found myself thinking, “could I just start over?” It was fun to get the nuances of a subject that I never really spent the time understanding in order to pass it along. I used to have a cartoon on my fridge that cracked me up. It was a lone student sitting at school desk in the middle of the living room with the back of the adult sitting at a desk. The caption read: “Any volunteers?” My son, Hudson, picked upon that right away when he would tell people about his homeschooling experience with me. That there was no place to hide! EXACTLY! Little stinker.
Anyway, I find this time of year, as the kids are gearing up from the end of their summers and getting excited about school. Another beginning. New teacher, new friends, new notebooks, pens, pencils and the like. The giddiness is infectious and I find myself getting carried away right along with them.
When Dave completed his treatment, and indeed mid way through, we were both feeling, as many MM patients/caregivers do, a chance at a new beginning. We were hopeful. Your perspective changes in many areas of your life.
Shortly after finishing this post I get a promotional email from Franklin Covey (The Daytime Gurus), Get Organized for Back to School. Is there no end to the torture?
And finally, I ended up getting school supplies after all! I ran by Staples to get some notebooks for my weaving and was ooohhing and awwwwing at all the cool new notebook styles. 🙂 Dave would be mad as we have empty binders. But they are ratty, old, ugly and don’t have the cool ‘D’ Ring I want. Listening to the moms and dads grilling their children on did they really need three binders and 16 dividers?
Just a silly post. As I continue to explore fibers and weaving, I have enjoyed my back to school experiences in this area. Â As with many endeavors, the actual doing-ness is easy, its the preparation leading up to it that takes the time and the sort out.
With Multiple Myeloma, or any other health crisis, we are thrust into being “schooled”. This is not a classroom any of us were ever interested in, but one in which we are often forced to confront and become students of medical jargon, insurance jargon, pharmacy jargon, side-effect jargon. All in an effort to better communicate and understand. So as you are doing this, take on the role of being a student and then quickly a teacher, but remember to learn or create in an arena that is more enjoyable for you. It helps to extrovert you from the daily trials and tribulations. And in the school of MM, there are no grades, no success or failure, there is simply doing the best you can. Admittedly it feels like there is a success or failure, winners and losers, but I humbly disagree. It’s the hand we are dealt and we must make the best of it and find ways to cope and little joys along the way. Knowing that you did all you could, with the knowledge you acquired is your success. The rest is out of your hands. We all have experienced crisis and tragedies, from a child struggling in school to the loss of a loved one and everything in between. You can do this, just keep walking forward.
Anyway, I was just enjoying the smorgasbord of school supplies and found myself reminiscing of days gone by as both a child and a mother. It’s hard not to get excited for the youngsters heading back to school and looking at the stressed Mom’s spending money they may not have, trying not to temper their children’s excitement at going back to school with all their new gear and hope of a good year!Â
oh, what memories this post brought back! living in a household with 7 siblings, it was impossible for our poor parents to indulge us with the giant box of 96 crayolas and other assorted goodies i longed for. the catholic school we went to had strict (and lengthy) lists of what to bring to the classroom, and the cost of uniforms alone could have my dad going into orbit. but having children of our own, and now little grandchildren, what fun it has been to gather all the lovely notebooks, paints, thick tablets of construction paper, crayons, markers, and craft supplies and get to indulge my fantasies along with theirs! a huge thing for the little ones seems to be when they can have SCISSORS! getting to use scissors means a big leap into possibilities, not just the old baby-stuff of coloring and using stickers. so fun to see all these little moves into being more in league with the big kids. makes me smile, also makes me wish they could stay little for just a while longer. sigh.
Oh what fun to work with little ones! Funny story with mine. Private pre-school at age 3 and the Exec Dir saw me hiding behind the bushes to make sure he was OK before I left. Soon, there were a line of parents like crows on the wire. He said, “Lori! You are setting a very bad example!” haha By the time I had my daughter, I learned, they stopped crying the minute the parents leave!
I work in an elementary school that only has pre-school, kindergarten and first grade. Today was our second day. You are absolutely right, there’s nothing like a box of brand new crayons and a new back pack that’s almost as big as you are 🙂 I think we had more mommies crying yesterday than little ones.
Your sailing looks wonderful!!!