With the increasing date on the August calendar, my nervousness is also on the rise. I watch my twenty-year-old daughter and sense that soon she will say, “Mom, I think I’ll be leaving.” By that, she means that the holidays are ending, and with them, her “holiday visit at home with her parents.”
With her departure, a wave of unknown glances descends upon our younger, fourteen-year-old daughter. Although her parents encourage her, the idea of the strict order of her boarding school, even when wrapped in the attractive packaging of an avant-garde community, cannot be embraced without a certain unease. Worries about a new roommate. Fear of long nights when she can’t sleep due to heat, cold, or illness, and the possibility of going to her parents’ room to wake them up and complain is absent. Despite our persuasion about changing schools, she doesn’t want to hear it due to her stubbornness and ambition.
So, at home, we’re left with just our youngest. The youngest, a ten-year-old daughter, became the only child at home for the first time last year, when her older sisters scattered to pursue their dreams and resolutions. Last year, we didn’t know what we were getting into, and this change took us by surprise. Our large family shrank to a household of three people, and it became noticeably quieter.
Perhaps it’s the fear of that silence during the school days, which my husband and I enjoyed so much throughout the year, that led us to devote almost all of this year’s summer holidays to our daughters. We let them come up with and arrange their own activities. It was quite a ride for us, the older parents. Not just on water slides, but also on social media and, last but not least, at beach clubs where they spent the summer. Thanks to this, my husband and I tested whether we had forgotten how to surf or play beach volleyball. Such a return to our younger years is not bad at all, but it shouldn’t last too long because people in our age group are not the most enduring in that regard. So, two months are more than enough.
This year’s end of August is rainy. It’s as if even nature is weeping at the end of the holidays, the light-heartedness, laughter, and games. I feel like even the rain is signaling to me that it’s time to return to all our responsibilities. Our youngest daughter is already on her phone with her classmates and can’t wait for September 1st when they’ll go back to school. She’s very excited (for the first week, as she never fails to emphasize), and her excitement is infectious.
And so, I too am looking forward to the new school year. To the routine that brings order and stability. Yes, it will be nerve-wracking to juggle all the tasks, get to school on time, not forget the gym clothes, and most importantly, the LUNCH. But even today, it’s clear to me that once this whirlwind ends and our children grow up, I will miss it.
I wish all the anxious and slightly nervous parents a peaceful school year.
Ivana Tykač,
