Indonesia

Indonesia
BATU, Indonesia. Photo by Jes Aznar

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

first day

"Bye, ma."

Just like that. And with a wide, excited smile plastered on her face, my daughter hastily got out of the car and walked to the school entrance. It was her first day of classes, her very first day of formal schooling.

It was all a blur for me as I followed her inside the small building of her very first real school. Some kids were escorted by the whole clan. It was surreal and I knew that the haze had nothing to do with the hangover from the whisky I shared with friends the night before.

The wailing and crying of younger kids reverberated in the air. Some did not want to enter the classrooms and be separated from their moms.

But the girl with pink pig tails whom I gave birth to four years ago, the girl who could barely walk and talk three years back, disappeared into the narrow corridor leading to her classroom. She never looked back.

She was beaming with excitement as she entered her little new world.

And there I was speechless, shocked and sentimental. I followed her so I could take photos and I had to ask her to stop for a picture.

I had prepared for some drama with cries and tantrums just as I did many moons ago when my own mother walked me to my very first classroom as a nursery student.

But the joke was on me. The little girl breezed through her first day of school. I went home and I sobbed.


Darn! I'm a mom and I couldn't help it.