Now I Know For Sure…I’m Old

Last night Michelle and I went to parent orientation at Franklin High School. Our oldest, K, is starting high school next year.

I really didn’t think much about the meeting prior to going. I figured it would be the standard boring stuff- bathrooms are over here, school starts at this time, students get out at this time, they are allowed so many excused absences per marking period, etc.

What I didn’t expect was to enter a high school that was much more massive inside than I expected, to walk an impossibly long and complicated maze to get to the auditorium, and then sit in a room filled with parents old enough to have kids going to high school. Wait. I’m one now too.

I was uncomfortable from the start. The principal and president of the parents-teachers organization got up to speak. The words were from my distant past, long forgotten- college prep, planning for college financial aid, mandatory courses, electives that will line up nicely with your child’s plans for the future, blah, blah, blah. Gone were the simpler days of elementary and middle-school orientation. Reminders from the kindly principal about arts and crafts fees, lunch tickets and the car-rider/drop off lane rules and etiquette.

There are times that seem reality smacks me in the face harder than others. There is the 'everyday' kind that creeps up on me and says ‘boo’ in little ways. Bills due, broken refrigerators, a new ache or pain. Those are the times reality and the unpredictability of life can knock me for a day-long loop. Other times, reality rears its ugly giant head and wobbles me a bit on my ‘center.’ Last night was one of them. A reminder, yet again, at how quickly life is flying by.

I remain more sensitive to this than normal as I am continuing to archive all of our old photos on our home network, and so have been bombarded the last week or so with hundreds and hundreds of images of K as our little first-born girl. Petite, cute, funny, smart. And little. Most definitely NOT a high school girl.






Click here if you would like to subscribe to the DigitalRichDaily
E-mail update. Place 'subscribe' in the subject line.