Just Because You Admire It Doesn’t Mean It’s Yours: Kindergarten Applications and Other Existential Cris
As many of you know, I’ve embarked on that “exciting” (read: completely soul-sucking) journey of applying to kindergarten in New York City.
And let me tell you, it is a full-time emotional sport.
But here’s the thing: it’s not just about picking a school.
It’s about questioning your entire identity.
It’s about comparing yourself to everyone around you.
It’s about running into your own childhood stuff at every turn.
It’s about asking, over and over: should I be doing more, less, something different?
And realizing, again and again, that none of this is simple.
Some days I catch myself looking at these moms who homeschool like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
Calm, crafty, thriving.
And I feel that little pang of jealousy.
That whisper of, maybe I should be doing that too.
Maybe he deserves that.
But the truth is, I know myself.
And I know I’d last maybe one day before we’d both be crying on the floor.
It’s just not my thing.
And that’s hard to sit with sometimes.
Because there’s a part of me that still wants to be someone I’m not.
Wants to be the kind of woman who makes every lunch from scratch while explaining the life cycle of a butterfly with a smile on her face.
But that’s not me.
And that doesn’t make me a bad mom.
It makes me a real one.
One who knows herself.
One who’s learning to know her child.
The hard part is, we don’t make these choices in a vacuum.
We make them while carrying the weight of our own stories.
The parts we wish were different.
The parts we wish we could give.
The versions of ourselves we thought we’d be by now.
And whether you’re a parent or not, this is something we all face.
Trying to do what’s right for who we are now, instead of who we thought we’d be,or who someone else says we should be, or what we think is best for someone else.
It’s so easy to project.
To think if we give someone what we never had, it’ll somehow fix something.
Or that if we can’t give them everything, we’re failing.
But what I’m learning, and what I have to remind myself of constantly is that Porter isn’t here to live out my unhealed dreams.
He’s here to live his own life.
And my job isn’t to make it look a certain way.
It’s to see him.
To choose what fits, not what impresses.
Even when it’s messy.
Even when it’s nothing like I imagined.
Being a good mom, and really, being a good human isn’t about getting it all “right.”
It’s about making aligned choices with love and humility.
It’s about the willingness to keep showing up, and adjusting as you go.
So yes, I’ll probably keep scrolling past dreamy homeschool posts and feel that pang.
But it doesn’t mean I need to change lanes.It just means that sometimes other people’s stories seem like a compelling way to live, and I can admire them, even envy them, without needing to make them mine.
And maybe that is what makes me, and maybe you too, really good at this.
Even when it doesn’t look the way we pictured.
Holding space,
Jamie
P.S.
If you’re in the middle of making hard decisions right now whether about your kids or your career or your life, please know this: You’re not alone.You’re not behind. And you’re doing better than you think.