I Want them to Go Back to School. I Think Do.

I'll be honest I do feel a little bit of relief that it's September. The day has edges again, my lamps look so pretty in the evening times. And the kids have has to be in the morning, somewhere I don’t have to be, and several uninterrupted hours in which nobody is asking me what we’re doing next. I can work. I can think. I can sit in silence. I don’t have to invent lunch and entertainment and an entire day simultaneously. But I’m going to miss summer.

Not the expensive, overplanned version of summer where every week needs an itinerary and somebody is always suggesting a wholesome family activity. I mean the ordinary bit. Waking up and deciding what the day is going to be after we’ve already woken up. Going somewhere because we feel like it. Staying home because we don’t. Realising at two in the afternoon that none of us has properly got dressed.

They're older now, which has changed summer completely. I don’t have to occupy every minute of their day anymore. We can exist alongside each other, they disappear into whatever strange little world has their attention, I disappear into mine, and then eventually one of us wanders over to the other with something to say. There’s a companionship to it now that I don’t think I noticed arriving. And perhaps that’s why the end of this summer feels different.

School means alarms again. Uniform. Bags. Clubs. Remembering what day something needs to be brought in. Watching the clock. Leaving the house when the clock says we should rather than when we are actually ready. It means standing around and making small talk when I would quite happily collect my child through some kind of silent hatch.

I want the structure back. I also resent the structure coming back. Maybe that’s all. September is when your children get a little older. You get your hours back, and suddenly realise you had started to like having some of those hours belong to all of you.