Lunch Alone
My youngest child is off to Kindergarten this fall. It's a full day program in our district, so it's been an adjustment for both of us. I know he was ready to go--his little brain was on overdrive, hungry for the stimulation of school. I too, was ready, with a list a mile-long of projects that had gone unfinished for years while chasing little kids around the house. The first week of school felt very surreal. I had the sensation that I had to keep looking over my shoulder. The house was too quiet which meant he must be into no good, then only to realize that he wasn't here but at school! It's taken me a few weeks to lose the hypervigilance that one assumes with an active child in the house. Now it feels that the one remnant of this change which still feels odd, of all things, is eating lunch alone. The mornings, afternoons and evenings are filled with work at home or the office, and shuttling kids to and fro. It's lunch time which has a melancholy feel. I someti...