Monday, March 10, 2008

Well, This Sucks

My children were not accepted into the school we were hoping for. I had told myself I would be cool with it, that the kids would end up where they best belong no matter what. But I am crushed.

I have to admit it though I want to pretend I'm fine. I am vacillating between crushing disappointment and indignant anger. But both of those feelings are completely overshadowed by guilt.

What didn't I do right for my kids? Where did I go wrong?

You see, I have never not gotten something I wanted in my life. Things have always come very easily for me. I have never received a rejection letter in the mail. Now my husband is another story. He almost never gets what he wants. He gets screwed by life at every turn. I guess his luck was in play here.

I know that not getting accepted into the hoity toity private school of our dreams is a luxurious kind of problem to have. But it still plays to every doubt I've ever had about my own parenting.

Oh, sure. The admissions director wrote a nice little note on each kids' rejection letter. And the letter itself said that they were wonderful candidates but the school just doesn't have room for them at this time. And what a disappointment for the school, and they are on the waiting list and blah, blah, blah. But I don't really buy it. I can see where they just might not have room for my daughter since her class is already full, but they accept 40 new boys into the first grade. Obviously, my son just didn't make the cut.

Or we didn't make the cut as a family. Maybe I made a bad impression.

I have decided to consider their decision their loss. Unlike the other schools we applied to, they didn't really take the time to get to know us. Other schools asked us to write whatever we'd like so that they could get to know our child and our family. Other school wanted us to visit, just so that they could talk with us. The school that rejected us only wanted us to come for testing and their application procedures were based on forms, records and test results.

At first I was put off by the school we will be going to because they accepted us so quickly. Now I am fully embracing everything they are about. Where before I thought that they were just trying to fill in numbers, now I have decided that they were brilliant to recognize what wonderful additions our kids would make to their school so quickly.

It's a great school. It has many more military families than the other school. The kids there seemed much happier than the other school. But it just doesn't have some of what that other school had, like a violin program, great facilities, excellent technology, and outstanding college placements.

I am going to throw myself into our new school with as much dedication as I have at our current school. They are the school that welcomed us with open arms.

A small part of me broke today. I was walking through life with the delusion that my kids were really amazing. Everyone has just always seemed so overwhelmingly impressed by them. But now I must face it. When it comes to purely objective measures of who they are, they are mediocre. Which means I am mediocre.

I need to adjust to the idea, but its okay. Now more than ever I will embrace the subjective things that make them so very special because those are the things that will make them truly happy in life.

But today, I am a failure at the thing that most matters to me in the world. I need to wallow for a bit.

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