Oh, how quickly the summer vibe goes away. That easy-going, relaxed, smooth as a new car’s coat of paint feeling that the mornings had.
“Had,” as in past tense. What your life used to be. Calm. Peaceful. Tranquil. People rising slowly. Birds singing sweetly in the trees. A kitchen all to myself in the morning and no one with anyplace to go, and no hurry to get there.
When you are the only one working during the summer, mornings are absolute bliss. My wife is a pre-school teacher, and my 16-year-old daughter’s only summer responsibility was to see if watching too many shows on Netflix could make her TV to burst into flames.
Nobody got up before 7. Sometimes 8. Who am I kidding? There were days when I didn’t see a soul before heading off to work. This meant I “had” run of the house. Run of the kitchen. Run of the vibe. All the bird singing to myself.
Had!
Now it’s all gone. My wife is back to her classroom and my daughter just started her junior year of high school. It’s chaos in the house again. Mornings are manic. Like standing in the middle of an interstate and trying to dodge semis. Like wandering around in a house fire. Like trying to navigate a Black Friday riot at a big box store.
It’s not their fault. It’s just the school-time tornado that spins up every August.
We’re all desperately searching for our back-to-school rhythm, only no one can remember how we used to make this work. How to cut through the chaos. How to walk the dog AND get to work on time.
For starters, I can’t remember the new schedules to save my life. What time does my wife go to work? What time does my daughter go to school? What time do I go to work? Why, if I got up at 5 a.m., did I not have time to get a shower? I went to work for an entire week without a shower! And wearing my bedroom slippers.
It’s like mornings are a giant black hole that suck time no matter how much extra you think you have. You cut corners left and right. Only shave half your face. Only brush half your teeth. Eat so fast you’re physically ill. Scream insane things like: “If we get stuck by the train, we’ll all be homeless by October!” What?!? Why would I even say that?
Then there’s the dog. She is of the belief that she needs to eat AND get a walk every day. That these two things go hand-in-hand – even though I’ve seen no scientific proof of this – and that if this doesn’t occur, we could be fined or even jailed by the authorities.
Walking my dog when we’re in a hurry is a nightmare. I explain it to her nicely: “I’M LATE, OK!!!” I scream in front of horrified neighbors. “SO, YOU BETTER POOP RIGHT NOW SO WE’RE NOT HOMELESS BY OCTOBER!”
She’s unfazed. There’s stuff to smell, and every time I break her concentration, she needs to start over.
It doesn’t help that the rest of the school-age world is in the exact same boat. All racing and freaking out and driving like maniacs as they try to get back into the swing of things.
The first week is always the worst. None of us parents have any concept of how to pull up to a school, drive around a circle and deposit our precious cargo at the front. We stop in all the wrong spots. We go the wrong way. We get out of our cars to take first day of school photos or deliver a kiss and a hug to little Jonny or Suzie in front of everyone. I literally saw this happen the other day. The kid was mortified and ran off in the direction of Georgia screaming, “YOU’RE SO EMBARRASSING! I’M TOTALLY GETTING A TATTOO AND DROPPING OUT OF SCHOOL!”
But I have a secret weapon: My daughter got her driver’s license this summer and has a school parking spot. Ha-ha! I never thought I would be so excited about my child driving. But as soon as we can muster up the courage to let her drive herself, I’m free of car-line duty. That should add gobs of time back into the morning. Return some of the sanity, and even the tranquility. I’ll listen to the birds again. And drink coffee more slowly. Then I’ll go out outside to yell at my dog to do her business so I won’t be late to work. Talk about peace in the household again.