Tomorrow Is The First Day of School

Dear Universe,

Tomorrow is Piper’s first day of school. Big day. Woohoo!

Or something.

I’m keeping the facade up like a pro. Yes, I’m so happy! She’s getting so big! It’s going to be so great!

But honestly, Universe, I find myself performing that excitement a bit. I’m like Miranda faking her sonogram in Sex and the City – plastering on the smile to appease the anxious askers, giving them the answer they’re looking for.

I want to be excited. I should be excited.

Am I, though?

The truth is, there is a bigger piece of me that is mourning this day coming more than celebrating it.

And it’s not because my little baby is getting all big or anything.

It’s because I feel a bit like we are losing a lot of our freedom. Like my kid is starting her first day of having to sit behind a desk. Stand in line. Raise her hand. Wake up to an alarm. Follow a curriculum.

Tomorrow is the first day when she will be forced to fit into a system I’m not sure I believe in much anymore.

I know everyone thinks I’m dramatic about that, especially the Danes. I’m the ungrateful, weirdo expat mom who won’t just conform and follow the normal path. The weirdo mom who wanted life for her kids to be a little more lived and a little less insititutionalized. The weirdo mom who has wanted to take my kids’ education into my own hands so my children and I could live our weirdo lives in our own weirdo way.

But alas this weirdo mom isn’t in a place where I’m capable of doing that right now. And there’s a large part of me that is furious at myself for not having that capacity to give her that alternative. Yet, anyway. I really wish I could.

So for now this is the path we have to follow. She will start school.

Tomorrow I’ll put on my Miranda face and smile for the pictures. I’ll cheerlead the crap out of her and tell her how great it’s going to be with learning new things and making friends and all that.

And it will probably all be just fine.

But if you know anything about me, Universe, it’s this: just fine is never good enough.

Help me roll with it for now, though, please. Help me stay optimistic and make the best of the situation – for myself and especially for Piper.

Happy first day of school.

XO – Bailee