Difficult morning...

It's been a slightly difficult morning. Today was ds' first day of kindergarten. He did great, just walked right in all confident and self-assured. So different from how I was even at that young age, painfully shy and with little to no self-confidence whatsoever. I had to call him back for a good-bye hug because he was so excited and interested in what was going on in his classroom. LOL

I just hope and pray so much that his school experience is a positive one. At various times throughout my life, I've heard others call their school years "the best years of their life". It always perplexed me as school was a hellish experience for me, one that I loathed then and continue to look back on with very painful, negative memories. I can remember being bullied pretty much every single day from kindergarten/first grade all the way through graduation senior year. I didn't have many friends at all, still don't really, and was horribly shy. And, of course, I think it goes without saying that NM was zero help when it came to bullying at school. The couple of times NHS and I told her about incidents, her only advice was to "just ignore [the bully]". Don't know why I should be surprised as that was the exact advice she always gave me when I'd complain about NSJ's abuse.

Today is kind of bittersweet for me. One one hand, I am so excited to watch ds begin this new adventure in his life. I have a feeling he's really going to like school and make a ton of friends. He'll be one of those people who look back later in life and say, "Those were some of the best years of my life." On the other hand though, it's kind of painful. My baby is growing up and becoming a boy. He's growing away from me. I can remember the day he was born, the first time I held him, the day we brought him home from the hospital, his first birthday, his first word, when he began to crawl....where does the time go and why must it go by so quickly?

Above all though, it saddens me because I feel all this so intensely and know in my heart that my NM has never felt the same. Rather than missing me and the house feeling empty when I started kindergarten, NM was probably glad to have a break from having to deal with me. Rather than hating that I was growing up and away from her, she was probably happy and in a hurry for me to grow up even faster so that she could get me out of her house. Most mothers cry when their kids move out. Not my NM. She was all, "Finally! Now I have my house back and all to myself!" Days like today are a horrible reminder of all I was cheated out of in a mother.

Despite that, I am happy because I know that my son will never know that pain. He'll never know the feeling of having to ride a bus home and come home to an empty house after school at the tender age of only 6 years and having to let himself inside and wait alone for a few hours until his parents get home from work. He'll never know the pain of feeling he has to choose between his mother and father and pick a loyalty to one or the other. He'll never know what it's like to have adult issues placed on his shoulders and bear that awful responsibility. He'll never have to be an adult when he's still a child. Best of all, he'll never know the pain of feeling he's never good enough or that he isn't loved by his parents. He can feel safe and trust and believe that he is worthy and good enough and loved unconditionally by dh and I. He is free to just be a kid, where his biggest worry is what video game to play first.

Can't wait until ds gets home today so we can sit down over a big plate of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies (his favorite) and talk all about what a great 1st day he had at kindergarten today!