Going Back
/Are you one of those who experiences dread with “Back to _________(fill in the blank).”
If you’ve checked social media in the past few weeks, you’ve seen adorable photos of adorable kids (and maybe an adorable adult or two) in adorable new outfits holding their little chalkboards telling you what grade they will be in as they head Back To School.
Pictured above: Karlee (Grand-Girl #1) and Aaron.
I love Fridays! And I like my job, but I still dread going Back To Work on Monday. I enjoy holiday food feasts, even though the holiday passes and it’s Back To The Diet.
Without a doubt though, when it comes to the dread of going Back, nothing compares to School—for me. Thankfully I haven’t had to go Back To School for several years. Looking back, I’m not sure why it seemed so dreadful.
Maybe it was that summers were so much fun for me. Fortunately I grew up in the day before mosquitoes came from the West Nile and ticks didn’t bring the fever back from the Rocky Mountains with them. The guy selling sub sandwiches wasn’t a pervert and the guy driving the ice cream truck wasn’t a meth addict. We left the house first thing in the morning and didn’t return home until we had a jar full of fireflys after nightfall.
Maybe it was that Back To School brought such pressure. I knew I would be expected to “work well with others,” and “work up to my potential.” I’m sure my parents held some hope that this year might be better. There was so much to remember: locker combinations, homework, teacher’s rules, bus number, which was the “up” staircase and which was the “down” staircase. Does this teacher want homework folded vertically or horizontally? Does the name go in the upper right hand corner, do we include the teacher’s name. I must remember not to ask obvious questions, like: “Why should I write your name on my paper Mrs. Teacher, don’t you know it?”
Maybe it wasn’t so bad afterall. Maybe going Back is a good thing. Maybe it’s good to have something to go back to. Maybe that’s one of the reasons I dread retirement. What will I do on Monday morning? Maybe if I ever do retire, sometime around mid-August, I’ll go to the store and buy myself a new pair of jeans and a couple of #2 pencils, some glue and an eraser just for old times sake. Maybe I’ll write something on a sheet of notebook paper and then I’ll fold any way I want to, or maybe I won’t fold it at all. What is there about Back To School time that brings out the obnoxious, rebellious little devil in me?