It would appear to be a week since I have written anything on this blog, I knew I hadn’t spent much time writing recently but hadn’t realised it had been that long. It has been an emotional week, with my youngest finishing primary school, she is finding the end of all she has known very hard indeed and has had trouble keeping the tears at bay. Despite a year of ups and downs, of being reluctant at times to go to school, having friendship problems and not wanting to do her homework, she is not quite ready to leave it behind and move on. Her next school is much bigger with approximately four times the number of pupils, so it will be a big adjustment, different classrooms and teachers for each lesson, finding her way around and as well as making new friends.
It is a difficult time for me too, although I have tried hard not to let her know how I feel as I want her to feel good about moving on, a new start, new opportunities. For me though it is letting go of twelve years of familiarity, of seeing the same people each morning and afternoon, chatting and catching up with their news. Some of us would go for a coffee once we had dropped the kids off and many have promised that we will continue to meet, but it won’t be the same, the regularity won’t be there, the knowing that you will see someone every day, that if you don’t catch them in the morning then you will see them at afternoon pick-up. I know that as their children settle in to schools and they adopt new routines the effort of going out their way to meet for coffee will become a burden that will be dropped. I suspect a few stalwarts will keep going but it won’t be the same.
It is an effort in this day and age, despite all the technology at our disposal, to keep in touch with others. Everyone seems so busy, juggling work and family and social lives that those things that require effort or thought are often the first to be dropped. Facebook and texts while allowing us to keep up with what people are doing in their lives, are a poor replacement for face to face encounters however brief.
I have made some good friends at the school gates over the years and I am not prepared to let them just slip away and, unless they tell me otherwise, I shall continue to contact them, to turn up for prearranged coffees, to try and organise nights out. I believe the people I want in my life are worth making an effort for. I guess I will find out in due course if they feel the same way.
