My alarm goes off in the morning at a godawful hour but I've been laying awake for what seems like forever. Cub is awake early too. He rolls on to his stomach and brings his face up close to mine, nose to nose, and asks, in a voice that is far too enthusiastic for the still dark morning, "are the green bells gonna turn on, Mama?" The green bells is how he refers to the alarm on my phone, a description that is perfectly endearing.
We get up slowly, he clambers over me, the softness of his baby body giving way to the bony knees and elbows of a little boy. Almost two and a half, this boy of mine, and I wince as his elbow digs firmly into my ribs. He turns the light on, enthusiastically, the way he does every morning, and announces "it's the weekend!" It's Thursday, actually, and my class starts at eight.
Year two. Year two! The first morning at school is lacking all of those signature first day of class vibes. Maybe I got them out of my system last year, or during the 6 years of my first degree. I walk to class. The room is dark, no one there. A few more people show up. We linger in the hallway, chatting, familiar already with each other as though we were just there yesterday and not separated by a summer. My phone lights up with a text and we head to the right class, which is the wrong class too, but that's not the point.
It's familiar, so familiar, and in that, there is comfort. I was dreading coming back. Anxious for everything, until yesterday my heart was not in it. And then, in the first minutes of class, sitting in a semi-circle with the wonderful women who have become some of my best friends, I remembered.
This is it.
This is it.
