The End of an Era Begins

So, Liv starts kindergarten tomorrow.

My reactions, they are legion. At the head of the pack is me doing cartwheels, tearing off my clothes and running down the street screaming “Free at last, free at last, thank GOD almighty I am free at last!”

But there’s also this general wistfulness that always accompanies endings for me – the end of high school, the end of college, the end of single life – a persistent but abstract notion that I didn’t make the most of that which is about to come to an end. The suspicion that I should have been taking better notes, that I’ve seeded the past with future regret.

These two feelings among the legion clashed last night. I was out with a couple friends for a little end-of-summer celebration of fish-n-chips and booze at a local pub. When I came home, Tricia and Liv were cuddling in the living room, and I said, “Olivia, are you excited? Tomorrow is the last day of team Livvie-Daddy.”

And she burst into tears. “But, I loved that!” She was inconsolable for ten minutes, but settled down after I backtracked and told her that wouldn’t change, that we’d still go on adventures, and then cuddled up to read her some bedtime stories.

I’ve been so focused on my very real need to have the time to move my life forward that I’ve forgotten, to an extent, what an amazing opportunity this has been to bond with my daughter. And the increasingly crazy and at-times-downright-mean behavior that has been resulting from her anxiety about school made me forget how much this time has meant to her.

Yeah, okay, there were the first couple sneaky tears as I write this.

Anyway, hnh, ah… Some of the other feelings.

I’m anxious right along with Liv. Worse than wearing my heart on my own sleeve, I pin it on Liv’s, and I’m not looking forward to co-suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous playground social dynamics. I so want her to succeed, to feel good about herself and continue to develop this incredible brain she’s been given. I worry about her getting bored. And I even worry that everything will be fine, and I’ll come to realize just how much I’ve come to rely on being needed.

And then there’s this whole thing with finally getting what you want after waiting so so long. I’m going to have time to write, which means no excuses, which means confronting that blank, leering page again and again. I’m afraid sometimes that I’ve been too long gone from serious literary or academic work and that maybe I just don’t got the juice no more. I’ve wanted this so long that I’m looking for reasons it won’t measure up.

More than anything, though, I feel on the cusp of change, of transition, with the inevitable attendant exhilaration. The image of the chrysalis keeps coming back, that the last four plus years have been a chamber from which I’m now being pushed, both forced and allowed to take flight on damp, half-formed wings.

And this makes me feel closer to Liv, because I think she feels the exact same way.