The first day of school (for everyone else)

Tomorrow is the first day for the school across the street. I, however, have no plans. I spent 12 years in school then 4 years in college and in all that time, no one taught me how to be an adult. It's a little like that overly told story where the bird pushes her chicks out of the nest to make them fly. Well I don't fly really well without lessons.

You'd think that colleges would have a class in life skills - like how to buy health insurance and what all that crap on car commercials mean. I have no idea how to file a tax return or even what all my car needs to have done every 3000 miles. How can someone go for 16 years, learn 2 languages, read hundreds of books and never learn what all the buttons on the washing machine do?

The worst part is that for the first time in 16 years, I didn't go back to school shopping. No new folders, no new pen colors to try, not even new fall shoes. I was always ready a full week before with my outfit carefully chosen and my backpack stuffed with everything on my list. Even after the time when school was exciting, at least the first week was worth the effort. I may not have read my summer reading, but I had every gel pen made and all my folders were color coded. I was really the queen of the locker signs because I had the most complete collection of pens and markers to choose from. If someone needed to write a note and wanted glitter purple with blue highlights, I was their girl.

I loved to make friends with the new people too. I think it was a mix of understanding from being new so often and wanting to know them first so I could have the good gossip to share. When I was the new person I made friends fast. Not because I was particularly awesome, but I was loud and not at all shy. I was pretty obnoxious for a while actually. I like to think the horrors of high school knocked most of it out of me, however.

Tomorrow hundreds of kids will walk across my yard to the school across the street with new backpacks and shiny shoes. They'll have rounded scissors and 24 pack crayons, 2 glue sticks and a pack of #2 pencils. I wonder if any of the kids will have crazy parents who found some way to accidentally buy #3 pencils.