First Day Down

How did I get so old that I have a freshman is high school?  Actually how did Carter get so old?  I feel like it was just yesterday that I was bringing her to Durham Academy for Pre-K.  Mrs. Ellis and Mrs. Stafford met us at the door to a big world of real school.  I remember sitting in the pre-school great room with the other mothers who became my wonderful friends, waiting for her school day to end at 1:00.

It feels like less than the time it takes to read Goodnight Moon Carter has gone through the pre-school, the lower school, the middle school and is starting the last school she will attend at Durham Academy.  How things change.  I dropped her off this morning at 7:45 in the morning and picked her up at 5:45 this evening.  A long time for me to wait to hear how she liked it.

Happily she reported good news, relief for a mother.  She liked her teachers, even though she may have a quiz tomorrow, she did not get lost, enjoyed the afternoon carnival, loved reconnecting with old friends she had missed over the summer and meeting new kids.  I hardly could ask for a better day for her.

First days are memorable although I don’t remember a thing about my first day of high school.  I spent my freshman year at Wilton High School, a big public school in our Connecticut town.  I can’t say I learned much.  I think I was one of five hundred in my class.  I had to ride the school bus to and from school and I would get home at three in the afternoon with nothing to do having done my homework on the bus.  This was well before title nine so girls did not stay to play sports unless you were a cheerleader.  I was never going to be a cheerleader.

My father found my education lacking and decided I should go to boarding school.  I was totally against this idea until I went to visit The Ethel Walker School and knew I would love everything about it.

I started as a sophomore and I do remember my first day well.  I was the only girl excused from taking a singing test since the Choir Mistress decided from my speaking voice I was not singer.  Also that first day I was put in a Latin class with only six other girls all of whom were “old girls,” meaning they had been at EWS at least one year and were used to the rigor and they all went on to Ivy or Ivy equivalent schools.  It was not my best class.

My rooming situation was no better than Latin.  I had two roommates and the three of us could not be more different.  Lizzy was the innocent daughter of an ex-pat living in Mexico City and seemed to have stepped out of the 1950’s.  Anne was all tomboy, good at sports and not really interested in classes.  I was somewhere in the middle.  Despite the rough first day, and really rough first year, I did fall in love with boarding school, my friends, my teachers, the camaraderie and the traditions.

I count myself lucky that I can keep Carter at home and still send her to a school that offers an education that is better than I had available at either of my schools.  I know these four years will fly by based on the speed of the last eleven.  I am already sad thinking about her going off to college.  I just want to hold on to these moments a little bit longer.