The First Day of School

 

Both of my children are back in school, kind of. My youngest went back in-person on Tuesday. She was super pumped about it. She picked out her clothes for the week. The night before she packed her lunch. She made a sandwich on a baguette and make sure her new pencils were packed. I was just sitting on the couch drinking wine confused.

That's my new default state. hahaha.

The next morning she got up early and got dressed. She looked so pretty. I told her that I would take her to Dunkin Donuts for breakfast. It's her favorite. We were leaving the neighborhood and she was like, "I'm going to put on some music to get me in a good mood," she said. She put on "Daydream Believer." She was belting it out. "How many kids in high school know this song?" I asked. She shrugged. "Probably no one."  She's like 55. Love her so much. She got a Boston creme doughnut and a frozen hot chocolate. We picked up her friends and off we went. 

As I approached the high school, I felt some kind of way. I was definitely in the Twilight Zone. There was a line of students outside, all in masks waiting to get their temperature taken to get into the school. I enjoyed watching the kids walk up in their masks. They look like badass ninjas. It was exactly 6 months since school has been out. My daughter and her friends put their masks on, climbed out of the car and joined the throngs of teenagers on the sidewalk. I watched my daughter for a moment before driving off. Then, I sobbed like a little bitch. Because I was happy and devastated and conflicted all at once. 

When I picked her up in the afternoon, she walked me through her day. It was very different than school had ever been. There were fewer kids than she thought there were going to be. Her yearbook class only has 3 other students. They truly are socially distanced so talking in class isn't really a thing. They can only walk one way in the hallways. Even though she has classes next door to each other, she has to go all the way around. The cafeteria has marked spots. There was a girl who was in the marching band with her last year that she has been having lunch with. They can't really sit in groups. She was disappointed on the first day. "High school kids don't really eat lunch, so I didn't eat either." She was so excited about her baguette sandwich. I gave her a speech about how you need to eat and drink water throughout the day and fuck what everyone else does. "Why don't you just eat and then maybe other people will eat?" 

My oldest was like that sometimes too. She'd bring home a whole packed lunch with two bites taken out of it. I don't understand teenagers. They don't want to eat, or wear a coat when it's cold, or do basic things that are healthy and literally keep them alive. It makes me crazy. She did eat the next few days. 

She likes being back at school. It has been good for her soul. It is some semblance of normalcy. It's good for us because we don't feel guilty having to work and feeling like she has nothing to do.

My oldest is virtual until January at least. We are making the most of it but she is not a fan. She doesn't have that many classes left to graduate, so when we picked her classes, she only had 2 left to take senior year. There was some issue with Spanish 2 schedule. So all of her classes are through the school and Spanish through the state's virtual platform. Which is more self-guided, a completely different platform. This also means that IF she goes on campus she would still need to finish that class virtually. I was not keen on it. But we did it anyway. It's been an absolute nightmare. She had Spanish 1 TWO years ago with not the most rigorous Spanish teacher. 

So, she's doing this class the past 2 weeks and the platform is not really compatible with ipads which is the device the school issued her and they assigned her orientation work when there was supposed to be other work and it was a clusterfuck. My kid cannot teach herself Spanish virtually. Sure, she can get it out of the way but if it is potentially harmful to her GPA, which is the point. I'm not blaming the school or the teacher, but learning a foreign language online is just not-it-chief. I'm breaking out in hives just thinking about it.  

I decided we needed to have a talk about it. I was worried about it because I didn't want to give her the impression that I thought she couldn't do it. She can do it but it will be a battle week in and week out. So I said, "Look, you have two options. I can hire a Spanish teacher to come once a week and teach you and work through your lessons or I can request that you drop it and you can take it in-person next year. So you'll have 3 classes senior year instead of two." She thought very carefully. "Honestly, I feel like it would be so much better for me to just take it in-person." I was like

Then, she has to submit some assignments through Schoolology and there were showing as submitted but blank on the teacher side so we've been working with technology. 

I don't like virtual school. I mean, we are making the best of it because there are no other options but it's just not ideal for certain kids. The schools are trying so hard. The teachers are so sweet and noble. "The children are going to get a robust virtual experience. It's going to be great!" I'm like:

Just give it to me straight. "It's going to be shitty. You'll need a lot of wine. Try not to jump off a bridge. It will be over someday....."  

I did a virtual school for a year with my youngest way before COVID. It was bad. Every morning I would wake up and suit up for a day of battling my 6th grader. I'm traumatized. 

She's supposed to go for a 2-week residency in November. My fingers are crossed. Every day I wake up I'm like, another day has passed. One day close to.....something. I am wishing my life away but I don't feel bad about it anymore because honestly, it's trash. Shit life right now, bro. 

We've made it to September. Half of my kids are back at school. Things are getting better-ish. I think. 

Little Did I Know Then

 

I can feel myself returning to some semblance of who I used to be. I can see interact with other people without feeling like I want to unzip my skin, jump out, and run away. I think I laugh and smile more. The other day, I found myself dancing in the kitchen while I was making dinner. 

As long as I don't think about it - this pandemic, the things that we have lost, I am okay. So, I avoid those things as much as possible. I check the news once a day, I play this stupid, mindless game on my phone and I fill my days with work, projects around the house and activities. I am slowly coming alive again. 

But the other day, I was at the grocery store and I had my headphones in and I'm rummaging through the dried beans and I hear, "Tralala...." and my blood run cold. There was this song my daughter discovered in February. In the last weeks of driving her to school, she played it every morning. I hadn't heard it in so long. It was like I was immediately back there, in the passengers seat as she drove to school. What an exciting time. We spoke of the upcoming pageant, things she would need from the prom, Governor's School acceptances.....There was so much hope and excitement then. I wondered if that was the last time she was happy. I wanted to throw up. Like, I thought It was okay but there I was in the middle of the grocery store having a full-on panic attack.

My youngest will return to school tomorrow. She is going in-person. She needs that. A few weeks ago, she came downstairs in the morning and was in a bad mood. She plopped down at the kitchen table. "What's wrong I asked her?" She just looked up at me with the saddest eyes and said, "I just want to go back to school."

"I know," I said. What else is there to say? It's happening tomorrow but my brain has not reconciled it at all. Logically, I know that school starts tomorrow but my brain is like screaming confused, "None of this makes sense to me!!!!" It doesn't make sense to me that she is going into high school because middle school didn't really end. Does that make sense? And there was no lead up to this school year. For the longest time, we didn't even know if she was going to go back to school at all and there was no real anticipation because you can't have hope or look forward to something that can be so easily taken away at any minute. 

There was no parent meeting or freshman orientation. There were no stores packed with parents getting back to school supplies. It's Septemeber, which is weeks after school should have started. There are no football games. In my head, I'm like, "There is a marching band competition we need to get ready for next week. Do we need more bottled water?" But there's not and we don't, and it doesn't matter anyway because that is something that we are not a part of anymore and it's weird and strange and my mind has not adjusted yet. 

The high school did post out a "welcome back video". I watched the first part of it - the empty hallways and an aerial view of the campus and I had a visceral reaction. Like, I felt physically ill. I have PTSD. I'm not making light of PTSD. I have it. I am fucking traumatized. The school represents loss for me, in so many ways. I'm such a little bitch. I hate it so much. Like I should be able to see a aerial video of the school without feeling like my insides are going to fall out. Ugggh. 

But, I will be at the high school twice a day - dropping off and picking up my freshman. So, maybe that will get better. Maybe it will force me to feel my feelings and deal with them instead of burying them in my dark place. We'll see. 

Here is an actual picture of me dropping off my kid at school tomorrow: 

This is also the anniversary week of 09/11. Which still, 19 years later, shakes me to my core. We always talked about 09/11 with the kids. Especially as they got older, it was such a traumatic thing. We would tell them what life was like at that time. The fear, the uncertainty, the feeling that things would never be the same ever again. How can you translate that feeling that the world is ending to someone that has never experienced it before? But I don't have to now. Now they know that feeling. 

I have spent the past few months, purging and organizing my house. I was browsing through my high school yearbook and this page just did it to me: 

Doesn't that just make your heart stop?

My oldest will have to pick up her yearbook next week. They decided to publish it in the fall this year so that spring sports could be included. 

I am kind of afraid to see it. I'm going to look at it because I spent the $75 but it's going to be rough. PTSD things. 

But, we made it to September, and that has to count for something. We are going to Greenville at the end of the month. I have Airbnb credit. Fun fact - 1 night in Paris is the equivalent to a weekend in Greenville. My daughter will see her friends from the Governor's School. We'll go to Paris Mountain State Park and be in nature. I think it will be good for my soul. It will be nice to get far, far away from here where nothing triggers me. 

 

The Year There Was No Sex Ed

 

My 14-year-old is going back to school next week. She is excited about it. I am excited for her but I don't really care about it. Meet the teacher? Don't care. Processes and procedures? Don't care. What's actually happening? Don't care. My sadness and anger have faded into this weird numbness. I feel nothing at all. Which I love. Not feeling my feelings is 10-out-of-10 my favorite thing ever.  

There are things that need to be done. I cleaned out her book bag and all the things that had been there since that day in March that she went to 8th grade and never went back again. We purchased some basic school supplies. I thought about the things she missed at the end of the school year. "You didn't have sex ed this year," I said. She shrugged, "No one did." 

NO ONE had sex ed last year. That really hit me hard. Everyone that knows me, or reads this blog knows that sex education is my soapbox. I've worked in women's health for so long that it is ingrained in me. I was really triggered about it. 

The thing that really bothers me about sex ed in my state is that they only do it in middle school. After 8th grade, they get 0 sex education. ZERO. I feel like high school would be the prime time to share this information considering that about 40% of US high school students are sexually active. Those are 2017 numbers, but still. 

That means that the conversation needs to shift for high schoolers and we are doing them a huge disservice by denying them education and resources. My daughter last year came home and was telling me about this kid that had a side hustle selling condoms to other kids. Y'all - $20 for a 2-pack. TWENTY DOLLARS. That is like a 1,500% mark-up. I appreciate his entrepreneurial spirit but that just blew my mind. I told her, "Seriously, tell everyone they can get a free bag of condoms from the health department. All they have to do is walk-in at the front and ask. Tell everyone." I'm that mom. I worked with a lady at the health department that had teenagers and she left a whole jar of condoms on a table by her front door. It was a take- one -if -you -need- one -arrangement.  Like, I'm cool, but I'm not that cool.  

My daughter had a friend who became a father recently. Which blows my mind. I can see this child in my mind's eye -a mischievous middle schooler. Now he is a parent, we have that in common. It can and does happen. It's not just other people's kids. We have got to do better. 

We talk about sex a lot. Not like, a weird amount but when there is an opportunity, I take advantage of it. For instance, this whole WAP song was a great open door. I always have kids in my house and they were singing it and I looked into it. I am not the pearl-clutching type but even I was like: 

 This lady was really bragging about her WAP, honestly, that's a weird flex. I was like, "It's not supposed to really be like that. If someone needs a mop and bucket for their WAP, they probably need to see a doctor because their shit is not right," I said. Somebody get Cardi to the hospital and get her some IV fluid because she is probably dehydrated. It really was a great opportunity for us to talk about sex and how women are often objectified. They actually had really great insights and they all were in a consensus that easy access to pornography has ruined their generation. "I feel like the world would be better off if they just banned Pornhub." I thought Gen Z would be more laid-back and anything goes about it but they had really strong feelings about it, which surprised me. 

I think we owe it more to our children and especially our daughters to do better. One pet peeve I have about sex education is the gender bias in it. Males learn about wet dreams and girls learn about their periods. Women in society are objectified yet there is this underlying idea that sex is dirty and wrong - at least for women. Which is super damaging and confusing. Men are supposed to want and enjoy sex but not women. If they do, there is a lot of shame associated with that. Many women carry those attitudes into adulthood and it is horrible and damaging. 

I think that women are deserving of satisfying and empowering sex lives. They are deserving of experiences where they feel confident and empowered. But it's a journey. Sex is like riding a bike to the corner store. People around you are going to the store- and they are talking about how great it is. There are slushies and all the candy bars and it's the best. Then one day, you are like "I'm pretty sure I'm ready to ride my bike to the corner store. I finally got a bike, it's time." Then you get on the bike and you barely get out of the driveway. You certainly don't make it to the corner store. 

Men, men are made to go to the corner store. They spend their lives coming and going to the corner store and they make it look so easy. But for women, it's an art. But now you've already gotten on the bike, so you try again and this time you make it past the driveway but not exactly to the corner store. Sometimes you don't even enjoy riding your bike because you're worried about the way your calves look when you pedal or that your butt is too big for the seat. 

Unless you've walked to the corner store yourself, you don't even know if you are going in the right direction. You definitely should walk to the corner store. Sometimes the bike gets too excited and you fall off and they just head to the corner store without you, leaving you on curb. They come back with slushy in hand. "Wasn't it great at the corner store?" and you lie and nod say that you finished your slushy already so you don't damage your bike's ego. 

Maybe the bike has been watching the Tour de France and it has given the bike ideas of what the ride to the corner store should be. Maybe the bike wants you to be Lance Armstrong. But how can you be Lance Armstrong? Lance trained for that, he is a professional. That is not fair. Maybe the bike wants you to sit on handlebars. You don't have to sit on the handlebars if you don't want to. If this is your bike, THROW THE WHOLE BIKE AWAY. 

Then one day, you are going to find your bike. The seat will be perfect, the handlebars were meant for your hands. Your bike will never leave you behind and will make sure you go to the corner store together. And over time, things will seem easy. You will ride to the corner store so easily. You'll forget that your calves look weird when you pedal - you'll just enjoy the wind in your hair and the scenery. You will be able to pop wheelies and let go of the handlebars and even close your eyes. But it takes a lot of practice and time and that's part of the journey. 

Does any of that make sense? My point is - the expectation of what sex is and the reality are two completely different things and I don't think we talk about that enough and we really do a disservice but not talking about it. Women are entitled to have positive, enjoyable, consensual, and empowering sexual experiences. I think that is normal and healthy and important and I will always express that to my daughters. I don't care how much that hate it or how embarrassing it is.  I love this Ted Talk: 

I implore you- if your child missed out on sex education this spring. Talk to them. It is your job. Don't let them pay $20 for a 2-pack of condoms from a random kid in the high school hallway. Make sure they know that WAP is not normal. Don't let them walk about being uninformed. Balance messages about safety and consent with positive messages that don't foster shame and gender inequality. Happy bike riding!