First days

When I was younger, the last couple of weeks of summer always had a certain feel of anticipation and excited anxiousness to them. It always started about two or three weeks before school started, when we'd go to the school to get registered and figure out where my classroom was. The week before school started, we spent our time getting all our school supplies--pens, pencils, folders, paper, notebooks, post-it notes, and the occasional box of crayons or markers. Some kids took trips to Target or K-Mart to find these gems, but we usually perused my mother's home office first, then went on an office supplies rampage throughout the whole house.

Then the last couple of days before school, the last few days of summer, I always played desperately. I always had one last adventure in the sprinklers and our backyard stream with my little brother. I always read my last six or seven library books, furiously trying to finish them before the new year started. I always spent several hours on our trampoline in our backyard, alternating between jumping or flipping and laying down to look at the flowers and impeccable Idahoan sunsets while listening to  backyard crickets chirping away. I always wandered a little farther in the fields next to my house, climbed a little higher in Grandpa's mulberry tree, and waited a little longer before coming inside for the day.

Tomorrow is another first day of school. And sadly, though I'm thrilled to start my new classes and work and volunteering and stuff this semester, it doesn't feel nearly as special as it did back then. Maybe I need to go back to elementary school. But...the prospect of cracking open my brand new books, opening brand new notebooks, using brand new pens as I take furious notes on brand new material is much too exciting.

Hello, school. See you in the morning.

via