back to what

back to why

I spent the better part of August pleading with Eider in one way or another not to go back to school. I knew this was futile, which is probably why I did it. Even though a part of me continues to hold out hope that he will call it and come home. High school is a shit show and the idea of him suffering through yet another year is hardly tolerable. He has fared better than his sister did through her tenure but that bar is so low that I can barely begin to hold it.

Eid is a look on the bright side kid, a grin and bear is sort of fellow, and even so, the hits have kept coming this first week back. For him for sure but also for all kids who have returned to the school in a country where the adults seem to joyfully declare nope nope nope we can’t keep you safe and we don’t even want to. If ever there was a structure with no backbone, it is that of the adult American declaration that no child anywhere is safe. Not from guns, not from floods, not from famine, not from war. It reverberated loud and clear through the summer months. We. Don’t. Care. If it is not me or mine, then fuck it.

But wait. They are mine. And yours. And all of ours. In fact, they are all we have ever really had, which is why the treachery of their abandonment should reverberate through forests and between skyscrapers and across corn fields.

Plus, high school is the pits. The belly of the institution. Not really a great place for true and eager learning. The learners have to swim upstream to get their fill. That is an unrelenting task. We have always told our kids that they will probably enjoy the learning environments and lifestyle of colleges and universities far more than their primary years inside the building. This has proved true for Moo. I imagine the same will hold for Bear.

And yet, his collegiate goals in particular require some degree of institutional compliance. Or, it is at least somewhat straightforward this way. But crap if it doesn’t break my heart to consider his final years of childhood being such an ever-loving slog. Plus, the particular paradox of suffering school but loving your family so well that leaving them will not be without its own special struggle.

I love him so much that it doesn’t fit in my physical heart. He has always been a dream come true. I want every minute left with him home to feel like it matters because it really does. To more than just me. I want to build this launch pad inside this hillside nest with as much power and precision as possible. I want him to always feel that, against all odds, the health and security and freedom of his spirit have always been the priority. So, if its back to school then its back to school but absolutely I will stand directly in the way of any negative through lines about worth or matter or purpose. Nothing is worth that sort of treason to self. Eider is king. Wherever he sits.