First Day Blues

There’s a certain sinking in a motherly heart when you know your child is disappointed.  I could hear it in his voice though he didn’t allow it to show on his face when he told me that his two best friends were in the same class together and he wasn’t.  Ugh.

What could I do?  This wasn’t the first time this has happened.  In fact, I think it’s the fourth time in his short school career that everyone he knows and loves ends up in one place and he gets the other.

He’s heard the, “You’ll make new friends,” and, “Maybe its for the best,” and, “God has a plan,” lines so many times that he would mouth them along with me in the exact order I were to state them.  Then he’d probably shrug in agreement.

But I can’t bring myself to say these things or to even try and cheer him up because what I do know most of all is that it sucks.  And it’s not fair.  And it feels like it happens all the time and why does it always have to be him and….and…

He never said one of those things.  He was being so mature.  So, grade 8 about it.

So I did what any mom who isn’t use to having a teenager would do.  I pretended he was 4 and I stated, “You can cry.  It’s okay.”

“I don’t need to cry mom.  It’s fine.  It’s not a big deal.”

But it’s not fine and it is a big deal!  I know it is.  I’m 35 and it’s a big deal to me if all of my family sits together on a plane and I get a seat 4 rows away.  It’s a big deal if you have to be the one person entering a restaurant on your own because everyone’s already there.  It’s a big deal to arrive late to bible study and have to sit at a table with strangers.  It’s a big deal!  It’s a big deal for me and I don’t even go to middle school, how can it not be a big deal for him?  Oh, I know.  He’s more mature than I am.  Right. Sometimes, sometimes it’s true.

I knew I misfired with my crying statement so I went on to trusty plan B.  It’s always my plan B.  When I fail on my own I suddenly remember that I don’t have to do this on my own and neither does he.

I went to my bible.  I found a verse for him.   I gave him candy and I read him this:

I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.  I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound.  In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.  I can do all things through him who gives me strength.  Phillipians 4:11-13

We talked through it.  We talked through his high’s and low’s.  We remembered years past that were hard but how we saw God work in them.  We talked about how 3 friends were made, 3 best friends, in years that started out just like this.  I encouraged him and told him he can do this.  He nodded and asked me for another sour key.

The kids gonna be alright.