Our boys are well into their thirties with lives of their own, and so it's been many a year since we had to gather backpacks and books and binders and push them out the door and towards the classroom. It's been even longer since my parents did the same for me, with the only real difference from our children's experience being that we had brown bags instead of insulated paks. As for kids today, I have no idea what those waiting at the top of their driveways and on neighborhood corners do for lunch, but if there's any food in their backpacks I bet it's nestled next to something electronic that we never even dreamed of.
While there may be a few weeks differential depending on where you live and what level cohort we're talking about, it's that time of year when students young and old return to school. They wrap up their summer activities, be it work or play, travel or staycation, and reorient their minds from leisure to study. For some it's an easy transition, for others it's more of a forced march. The hope is that they make the pivot with a minimum of anxiety and fuss, and fall back into the good habits that they need for academics (reading, studying, going to bed early) as opposed to the bad ones they enjoyed all summer (binge watching, playing games, staying up late).
For sure it's a physical adaptation that is driven by a different and regimented schedule. But it's also a mental adjustment, with the need to plan and focus and cope with demands and assignments in new (and hopefully interesting) topics. It has caused kids of every age to lay awake at night and stress out about the challenges and how to cope with them.
Speaking for myself, it's been well over 40 years since I was in that position. Even if you count the not dissimilar transition to a new job, it's been several decades since I had that experience. To be clear, the psychological impulses that accompany those events are hardly a learned physical skill. They are not the same as riding a bike or tying your shoes or driving a car, procedural memories we rarely forget. And yet that unconscious manufacturing of anxiety come Labor Day is engrained in me as a muscle memory I can't seem to shake.
I don't know if it's the shift in the weather from hot days to cool nights. Maybe it's the change in the calendar from August to September. Perhaps it's the explosion of back-to-school ads, or the startup of football, or the darker mornings. Whatever it is, there is something in the air this time of year that causes me to start to tense up as if I am walking into Miss Maranchick's third grade class for the first time.
It's not like I have anything seasonal to be worried about at this juncture in my life. Quite the opposite: knock wood, my health and the general health of my family members is good. We have been reasonable stewards of our finances, and whether by luck or skill or a combination of both have gotten to the point where that seems well in hand. I'm not bucking for a promotion this year, or hoping I made the team, or worried I won't get the grades I need to make Honor Society. I know who I am, what I can do, and am granted a fair amount of deference from those around me based on my years and accumulated experience and knowledge. Nothing should be making me anxious. And yet at this time of year I still often go to bed with the same feeling I had when I wasn't sure I answered homework problem #5 correctly as to whether the train going to Cleveland from Goshen at 70mph would beat the one going to Chicago traveling at 60mph.
The philosopher George Santayana famously said that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. My problem is exactly the opposite: I remember those back-to-school feelings so well that I shall never forget them, even when there is no school to go back to. Luckily the feeling fades fast, even if I don't have the consolation of knowing that my mom put a Ring Ding in my lunch bag next to my bologna sandwich.
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Marc Wollin of Bedford still has a part of his brain that is eight years old. His column appears weekly via email and online http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/ and https://marcwollin.substack.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
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