Behind Roxy & Kylo’s Back to School Day
There is a picture of me standing by the front door with my niece, who was about to start first grade. In another, I’m bent over hugging her. I remember being excited for her and thinking about how quickly she was growing up. First grade felt big. She was still little, but somehow she was already taking another step away from being quite so little. I wasn’t standing there thinking about what she would become someday or contemplating the meaning of new beginnings. I was probably doing what I had always done with my nieces and nephews—encouraging them, building them up, and reminding them to learn something. I took the learning part rather seriously.
The Gifts Nobody Asked For
I was the aunt who gave educational toys. They hated it. To be fair, I was also openly competing with their parents over who could give them the best gifts. I maintain that “best” should include meaningful, which conveniently improved my odds. But underneath all those educational toys nobody particularly wanted was something more important to me. I wanted my nieces and nephews to grow up believing they were capable. I never wanted one of them to look at something unfamiliar and immediately decide, I can’t do that. I wanted them to try, learn things, make things and be creative. I wanted them comfortable speaking up and standing in front of people because those were things I had struggled with myself.
Once, during a visit, I decided we should have a family talent show. They could perform anything they wanted, alone or teamed up with a cousin if standing up there by themselves felt too intimidating. I even planned to charge their parents admission and add the proceeds to the money I was putting in the pot, because apparently even my family talent shows required a business model. But really, it was just supposed to be fun. We were family. If there was ever a safe place to stand up, be creative, try something and risk looking a little silly, I thought it should be in front of the people who loved you most. I wanted the cousins to compete sometimes, absolutely, but I also wanted them to be fiercely protective of one another and be each other’s biggest fans. The point wasn’t that they had to be the best at something. I wanted them to have enough confidence to try.
I Wanted to Be There
Not long after that first-grade photograph was taken, I moved away for work. My niece was seven, and although I knew I was building my own life, I still carried some guilt about what I was missing back home. I had imagined myself being the aunt who showed up—to school events, performances, activities, whatever my nieces and nephews were learning or getting into. I wanted to cheer them on, encourage them when something was difficult and make a big deal when they discovered something they could do. I wasn't their parent, and raising them was never my responsibility. I simply wanted to participate in their growing up, and living far away meant I was going to miss a lot of it.
So when I came home to visit, I sometimes found my own ways to catch up. On one visit, I decided the kids should put on a talent show for the family. Pick anything. Show me what you can do, what you've been learning or what you're into. They could perform alone or team up with a cousin if they were too shy to do it by themselves. Their parents would be the audience—and because apparently I couldn't just organize a normal family activity, I decided the parents should pay admission, too. I'd add their money to whatever I put into the prize pot.
Mostly, I wanted it to be fun. I wanted to see what I'd been missing. I wanted the kids to be creative and willing to try, and I figured if they were ever going to practice standing up in front of people, what safer audience could there be than their own family? These were the people who loved them most. Compete with your cousins, team up with them, cheer for them, be their biggest fan. Just get up there and have fun.
But Choose It for Yourself
As my nieces and nephews got older, my advice became more direct. One of my nephews still remembers me telling them: Don’t always listen to your parents and let them pick your degree. Follow your heart. Perhaps that was an unusual thing for an aunt to tell her nieces and nephews, but I had my reasons. I knew what it was like to make an important choice because I wanted to please my own mom. She cared about my grades, and fortunately doing well in school came fairly naturally to me, but choosing what to do with your life is something different. I didn’t want them to mistake somebody else’s idea of a good life for the life they actually wanted. Listen to the people who love you. Learn from them. Consider their advice. But don’t hand them the decision.
I wanted them to have enough confidence to choose a direction for themselves—and enough confidence to admit when the direction they chose wasn’t working, because that happens, too. One of my nephews initially followed a path that wasn’t ultimately his before realizing he needed to forge his own. My niece had her own uncertain stretches along the way. There were times when the confidence I had always wanted so badly for her didn’t seem quite as easy for her to find, and that was hard to watch. When you love someone, you want to remind them of everything you can see in them. You want to hand them confidence as easily as you once handed them an educational toy they never asked for. Unfortunately, confidence doesn’t work that way. Neither does direction. Eventually, they have to discover both for themselves.
And she did. She chose a new program and began moving toward something that felt like a direction of her own. Slowly, I could see something else returning with it: her confidence. After all those years of telling her to learn something, she had finally paid attention. I reserve the right to take partial credit.
The Picture We Took Again
Twenty years after that first-grade picture, my niece was getting ready to start school again—this time because of a direction she had chosen for herself.
Somewhere in the middle of getting ready for that first day, we remembered the old photograph. The funny thing is, recreating it wasn't some carefully planned photo shoot. It was almost an afterthought. She had somewhere she needed to be, and none of us wanted a sentimental picture to be the reason she was late on her first day. So we stood by the door, tried to recreate the old pose, took the picture and sent her on her way.
We didn't reproduce it perfectly. We didn't need to.
In the first photograph, she's a little girl tucked underneath my arm, about to begin first grade. In the second, she's grown, standing almost eye-to-eye with me, about to walk into another classroom twenty years later. The difference between those two photographs isn't just how much she grew. It's everything that happened in between them.
When we took that first picture, I couldn't have known where her life would eventually lead. I couldn't have known there would be another school beginning worth photographing two decades later. I only knew that this little girl I loved was starting something new, and I wanted to remember it.
Twenty years later, we took the picture again for much the same reason. Not because she was starting over. Because she was starting from everything she'd already become.
Back to School
Maybe that is why Roxy and Kylo’s Back to School Day means more to me than simply the end of summer. Their summer began with a bell at 3:00 in the afternoon. School was out, and an entire season of possibilities waited ahead. They played, explored, laughed, discovered and did it together. Then another bell came at 8:30 in the morning. Time to go back. But they weren’t returning as exactly the same pups who had left. They carried the summer with them—the experiences, memories, things they had tried and perhaps even a little more knowledge of themselves.
And still, they didn’t know what would happen next. At the school doors, Roxy asks Kylo one simple question: “Ready?” Kylo answers, “Ready.” I love that exchange even more now because being ready doesn’t have to mean knowing exactly where you’re going or what will happen when you get there. Sometimes it simply means believing you can try, you can learn and you can figure things out. And if you’re a little scared, maybe you don’t have to do it alone.
New Beginnings Matter
We tend to make a big deal about first beginnings—the first day of school, first job, first home, first big decision—but life gives us other beginnings, too. Sometimes we choose them because we’re excited. Sometimes because we’ve grown. Sometimes because the direction we thought was ours turns out not to be. And sometimes we simply need enough confidence to try again. That doesn’t mean everything before it was wasted. You bring it with you.
Looking back, I can see that so much of what I wanted for my nieces and nephews was really very simple. I wanted them to participate in their own lives. Try something. Learn something. Create something. Stand up and be seen. Cheer for the person beside you. If you’re afraid to do it alone, grab someone who loves you and do it together. And have some fun while you’re at it. I didn’t know all those years ago that I would still be saying essentially the same thing today. I just happen to say it now through two doodles.
What Stayed With Me
We take pictures at beginnings because we want to remember how someone looked before any of us knew what came next. Years later, I’m grateful we took that first picture, and I’m even more grateful that life gave us a reason to take it again. A beginning doesn’t have to be your first beginning to matter, and you don’t have to have everything figured out before you make one. Sometimes you just need enough confidence to take the next step. Making a new beginning can be exactly what matters.
What About You?
Is there something you once thought you couldn’t do—or a path you thought you had to follow—that you eventually found the confidence to try differently?
