Back to School

 Yesterday was back to school day for a significant portion of our province/country. 

I have always loved back to school season, which starts in August with all the stores carrying the B2S (Back to School) supplies. Paper, pens, erasers, books, and binders - OH MY! 

The best way to describe my joy is think of how much Morningstar loved Christmas, well that is how much JOY I get in the B2S season. I start singing this song every time I see a B2S display, in any store (not just Staples/Business Depot) 

Click the image or copy the link into a browser

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iz56prGBiS8

Many people in my family think I am crazy, actually I am pretty sure that everyone who HAS to return to school in my immediate family thinks I may have a screw loose (think everyone under the age of 18). I don't have children and have not been able to experience the joy of shopping for my own children, but for a few years my sister allowed me to help with the school shopping with the nephews because it brought me so much joy. 

I think personally that back to school was the one time of the year that made sense to me. I absolutely loved going to school and learning, and it's part of why I chose to work in the Adult Learning field, either that or there is something genetic that Morningstar passed through her genes to me. As many of you know Morningstar was a teacher, and a really good one. For years I would watch her even get excited for back to school, which may have influenced my love of school, or maybe it was also that school and learning was the one place I felt that I belonged 100%, I mean I did spend the majority of my summer hanging out at the public library with my best friend reading... School was also one of the loves that I shared with Mom. We didn't always agree on everything in the world, but school was special. We never had to argue about if I had done my homework, because I had ALWAYS done my homework +. 

This semester I returned to school (again), I am currently taking a Masters degree in Education. I say "again" because this will be my second/third attempt to get through a whole semester at school. Over the past year life got crazy, I lost Buffy first, and then Mom got sick. For both situations I could not focus on school/studying - and when Mom got sick I also simply didn't have the time. Daily visits to the hospital to see Mom, meant that there was very little time to study. It's one of the feelings of guilt that I have, that I am relieved I can go back to school and take courses and not have to worry about if/when Mom would take a turn for the worst, because the worst has already happened. 

Sir Steve posted a picture on socials of 'lil one (really not so 'lil one) returning to school. It's the first year that Morningstar didn't take her back to school photo, and it made me (and I am sure many others) pretty sad. Mom was such a big influence on why I loved school, and while Sir Steve will do an amazing job in her absence, there was just that little spark ya know? Mom was just so special. 

This is another first that we will go through over the course of the first year of her absence. I hope that it's ok that I am going to focus on the sheer JOY that I have about going back to school and learning... and not focus on her eventual absence from my graduation, and all the amazing milestones in school that 'lil one and the grandkids will also go through (the middle grandkid is GRADUATING HIGH SCHOOL THIS YEAR!). 

Wishing all of the students returning to classes an AWESOME year of school.