Dear Beagle,
It’s the start of another school year and your first year of High School. Wow! Remember that first day of kindergarten? The teachers put you on the bus by mistake when I was planning to pick you up. We were both so scared. We’ve come a long way since then.
I bet you’re glad to be in the home stretch. You haven’t always been the biggest fan of school. But this is IT – the period of time when you’ll gather stories that you’ll share in reminiscent conversations for the rest of your life. ‘When I was in High School….’
You may love this school year or hate it. You may have a teacher who doesn’t ‘get’ you, or a friend who breaks your trust. But you will also cross paths with kind people and brave people and people who appreciate your sense of humor. Love them all. Be inspired by every experience – even the ones that make you want to scream. Because this is real life – a bunch of experiences that make you want to cringe or to celebrate. All of them are a pile of gifts just waiting to be opened by you. Life is waiting to see what you’ll do with these gifts.
School might seem like a place that you have to go to. I get that. You can’t wait to be done, to be free in the world to make your own choices. But the truth is, you’re already free. Each day that you show up for life, you have choices. You get to choose whether you’re miserable or happy. You choose to be kind or to be mean. You choose to do the work that is asked of you or not. Every choice that you make tells the world who you intend to be.
Dad and I don’t send you to school hoping you’ll be the smartest or funniest or coolest. We don’t care if you’re picked for a team or invited to parties. We don’t hope you’ll be the best at anything because we already love you completely. You can’t earn more of our love or lose any of it. That’s the way it is.
We send you to school to experience life. To practice being you in a sea full of people. To learn how to be brave and disciplined. To make mistakes and learn to forgive yourself. To discover your hidden talents and maybe some limitations too.
Take care of yourself this year, Beagle. And your classmates and teachers too. You’re all together in this thing called school. Dad and I are here to support you. We will always be your biggest fans.
Love,
Mom
Chaos & Clarity 