On First Days

This. This photo. It sums things up.

Every year since my older guy started kindergarten, I’ve brought my kids to the local breakfast place for a traditional first-day breakfast. Over the years, we’ve toggled it a bit. For a while, I worked in the same district they attended, and our annual ritual celebrated a beginning for all three of us.

In later years, when I took a different position, I was often into my school year before my kids were, but we still continued our custom.

Even when my older son started college last year, I was beyond pleased when he asked to do a breakfast together on his last full day in town. It marked the transition to doing two separate first-day breakfasts to commemorate the year for each guy.

And this year? I wouldn’t swap the tradition for the world. So maybe we still have to do two different breakfast dates. So maybe I’m still nervous about eating at restaurants. So maybe we have to bring home food in a paper bag because that’s our pick this time around. So maybe we eat side by side on the family room sofa instead of at our booth at the cafe.

So what.

There is so very, very much about this year that is so different, so strange, so foreign.

And yet, all of that change has only served to highlight the things that remain steadfast and sure.

Tomorrow’s post will be about exactly that – what emerges as right and true for me as a teacher, even in the midst of this difficult world.

Until then, I’ll smile to myself knowing I have another first day in the books, and knowing that I was able to coax one. More. Photo. Out of a reluctant teen who would rather roll his eyes than take a photo for Mom.

Some things remain steadfast and sure.