Back to School

I've been neglecting my blog. Because I'm lazy. "Tell me something I don't know," many of you are thinking. And correctly so. If I weren't lazy, I would be my brother H.L., clerking for a hot-shot judge in the DC circuit court. The only way to best a clerkship like that is to actually clerk for the Supreme Court. Actually, I probably wouldn't be a lawyer if I wasn't lazy. I've be ... a better reporter? I dunno. Sometimes I think this isn't the profession for me, but I always come back to how perfect the job fits my likes and passions. Maybe if I weren't lazy, I'd just be freelancing on the side for big-time magazines or writing a book.

Anyway, I'm making no sense. The real news is this: Claire started kindergarten yesterday. That's it. I'm old enough to have a child in the public education system. It will only be a matter of time before she's graduated high school and left for college. It's so surreal. Part of it, I'm sure, is my inability to accept my station in life. In my mind's eye, I'm still a 21- or 22-year-old.

But what surprised me about taking Claire to her first day of school was realizing that I was relenquishing control of her life. She is now in someone else's hands, for better or for worse. That's hard. But I know this is the best thing. It would be infinitely worse to home-school her, stunting her emotional and social growth by never giving her the chance to get out on her own. Parenting blows my mind. I think that's the only conclusion I can come up with.

Age is a weird, slippery thing. I turn 30 next month. I used to be dreading it, actually, for the same resons I can't believe I have a child in school. I've been dreading it for the past three years, actually. And because of that, as my birthday approaches I've become more comfortable with it. But it's still weird. Weird because there are memories fresh in my mind from elementary school that make my childhood only seem like momemts ago, not decades ago. I always thought that when I got old I'd feel old. But that's not the case so I'm not sure how to deal with it. I'm guessing the key is to not deal with it, but to just go with the flow -- just keep trucking down that road of life and don't look back too often. And I guess that's my problem. I like to look back. I'm unhealthily nostalgic.

It's all so strange. And I have a canker that won't go away.