Not just good things come to an end

EVERY August for 18 years I’ve got someone ready for school. The first time I did it, when the Boychild was going into Junior Infants, I was pregnant with the Girlchild. I had cunningly broken my leg a few weeks before and was on crutches so when it came time to leave him in the classroom, I cried and couldn’t wipe my nose. My hands were both occupied with the crutches and keeping my rapidly expanding self upright.

I’ve just done it for the last time. The baby who lived in that bump has gone into sixth year, she gets to wear a different colour school shirt in honour of the finality so we went to get that. It was only seeing families preparing little children for their first days that made me realise that a journey that was beginning for some families was ending for ours.

Primary school feels long. It is long, eight years when they go from teeny people with baby teeth to pre-teens about to crash into puberty. Secondary school on the other hand absolutely flies. Once your last child starts secondary your life changes; the longer the school hours, the more independent the child. And after this stressy year it will all change again.

Maybe that is the elusive definition of middle age. You see people begin journeys that were new to you once too but now feel miles away. Marriage, babies, school. That person who was the contents of a bump 18 years ago, who I didn’t even know was female but who is now so intrinsic to my very being, is entering her last year of school. A whole phase of her life, and mine, is coming to an end. And hopefully in another 18 years we’ll look at people in this boat. And I’ll think “Crap, does that mean I’m in old age?”