It hit me that I have a long and complicated relationship with school buses.
Maybe not likethe one Chris Farley had inBill Madison, but complex nevertheless.
For starters, in 12 years of public school, I never rode in one except for field trips.
She was cute and smart and tended to wear a low cut peasant blouse under her green Mustang convertible.
My point being, life inside those buses was an alien world I only heard stories about.
And at that time in Massachusetts, most of those were horror stories.
I didn’t fully understand what was going on, growing up like I did in an insular world.
(The most ethnic kid in my school was a WASP.
And Boston still hasn’t lived in down in the eyes of the rest of the country.
As a grown up, school buses became the bane of my existence.
(Often referred to as Cha-cHingham behind its back.)
Easily putting mine in the 99th percentile of all commutes in America.
At least when school wasn’t in session.
When it was, it became aslog.
An interminable crawl done in 25-yard increments.
And in doing so, make late pretty much every day of the school year.
Now, a cynical person might point out that I could’ve solved the problem by simply leaving earlier.
Or what in some cultures is referred to as, “on time.”
But anyone who thinks that never worked for the state.
And doesn’t know the simple joy of walking in at 8:45 and signing in as 8:30.
Or teaching your coworkers the concept of “Jerry’s On Time.”
I was an Officer for the Trial Court; not playing defensive end for Tom Coughlin.
Anyhoo, that all changed when I had sons.
To them, it might as well have been a spaceship.
TheUSS Enterpriseor the Millennium Falcon.
Something they aspired to.
And that photo above is from the first day of Kindergarten, 2002.
That’s my older boy, in a Harry Potter backpack grinning and an ear-to-ear grin.
Not pictured: His mother holding his infant brother and weeping openly.
Let me interject here to point out something I’ve mentioned before: I have crippling daddy issues.
So I just opted for, “Just watch your movie, buddy.”
To me, making that adjustment was the hard part.
And in my experience, it’s infinitely harder for moms.
Really, no matter how much the father tries to be involved.
But at some point, they have tostopbeing there every minute of every day.
Which is an enormous sacrifice.
Jordan Peterson refers to this as “the necessary failure of the good mother.”
With “failure” meaning she has to let them go and learn to meet their own needs.
What the good mother must do.
A sense memory kicks in, stronger than any other I’ve ever experienced.
All those mornings standing at the end of the driveway, just talking about …stuff.
The game last night.
What he’s building inMinecraft.
The kid with cooties who did something stupid.
What we’re doing in football practice later.
Me dressed for work, holding a cup of coffee.
Holding a rolled up posterboard with the ink still drying from the project he finished at the last minute.
Or an older SUV their dad upgraded from.
But those mornings spent standing with them waiting are what stay with me still.
I can feel them more than I can feel the present moment.
And I envy the parents who still get to be experiencing it right now.
Because I know how incredibly profound that feeling is.
And always will be.
I mentioned in the headline this is a school year unlike any other for us, and it is.
The boys are long since out of college.
But my devoted Irish Rose just began her retirement from teaching Music in the elementary school.
She’s not retirement age, necessarily.
She just needed out, for her own well being.
That job is alot.
She lacks that DGAF gene that I was blessed with during my career in government.
So she’s pursuing other things that require less commitment.
Less of herself, mind, body and spirit.
And in between keeping them engaged, inspired, and safe.
Both from the usual kid things, but also the unspeakable horrors of an insane world.
Going anywhere in the town where she was working is like walking around with Taylor Swift.
To the under-10 crowd anyway.
And as she eventually sat back down at the table, the little girl was positively beaming.
It was sincerely one of the great things I’ve ever witnessed in her teaching career.
… [I]n Greek, nostalgia literally means the pain from an old wound.
Its a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone.
This rig isnt a spaceship, its a time machine.
It goes backwards, and forwards… it takes us to a place where we ache to go again.
Its not called the wheel, its called the carousel.
To every family with a child in school, cherish these moments.
Make the most of them.
Make them as happy as possible.
They’ll be with you forever.
And to everyone, thanks for reading this far.
And being patient while I’ll work out my issues.
I promise I’ll get back to the usual claptrap as soon as possible.
