Mask

My oldest child starts highschool in two days time. He’s so ready and so excited it’s been hard to feel anything other than excitement for him.

I can’t believe I have a child going into highschool. I can’t believe how grown up he is. I can’t believe how many years have passed since he was first put in my arms.

All of that, but his excitement has anchored me and stopped me from getting too caught up in any of that.

Tonight I found out he’ll be starting school this year in a mask. He’s not 12 until late April, I guess I thought we had a term before we needed to think of that. That he would at least be able to start, settle in, make some new friends, feel somewhat normal for at least the first term.

That won’t be the case and after realising that I feel sadness. I feel sad for all of our kids and what they are going through during their childhoods. What they are getting used to, what they know as normal, what they are losing and what the future repercussions could be for them.

So many of the things we know as normal will not be normal for our children this year, maybe not ever.

Now I’d better say this next bit quickly before half of you write me off and scroll on 

I understand we are living through a pandemic. I understand safety measures are necessary. I understand that there are people around the world dealing with far worse than masks in classrooms. I understand the highest priority is that my son and his classmates are safe.

I understand and I also feel. I am mind and also heart.

I can know that it is necessary and also feel sad about it. I need to and I’m saying these things ‘out loud’ here for anyone who doesn’t feel that they can right now.

Feeling what we feel, allowing it and expressing it is how we get through things that feel sad and hard.

It’s how we move through, how we stay intact and whole through hard things like this.

I feel sad tonight and I know that allowing and expressing that sadness as it is rising will prevent it from harming me and from harming my son. It will prevent these feelings that are mine settling into the space between us and absorbing into his experience.

Will allow me to hand my son his mask on Monday with his bag and lunch money and to send him off to the bus with a proud smile.

It will allow me to move forward quickly into what I can do, what I do have power over and how I can support him with however he might respond to the way his first day of highschool looks and feels for him.