The Rhythm of Years

You are standing on a corner, tattered violin case in your right hand, your left hand grasping a backpack slung over your shoulder. It is your 8^th elementary school in six years. You are about to start over again as the “New Girl” and this drill is exhausting. You clutch your bag again for comfort. Buried within the backpack are not one, but two books, security blankets ready for times in the school day when socializing will be expected. Lunch. Recess. Moments of downtime in the classroom after all of the boxes on a worksheet have been checked off. You long for stability, routine, easy transitions, but in the meantime, you look down at your scuffed black tennis shoes and concentrate on making it through the day. Seven hours between when the bus picks you up and departs you back at your cul-de-sac. Seven hours until you can feel safe again.

I was reflecting recently on all of the transitions that I made growing up. We moved frequently in my elementary school years, and 5th grade, in particular, was quite challenging. I think that each move became a little more difficult and starting over a little more tiring. 

I had a sudden epiphany tonight - perhaps those still would have been hard years. Perhaps living in the same place since early childhood is no guarantee against upheaval, against change, against growing up. 

We have prioritized staying put in Manhattan. There are many reasons for this, but buried among the list of benefits of life in Manhattan, Kansas is the fact that it gives our children stability. We moved here when my daughter was 6 years old and my son still a toddler at 2 years old. Part of this conscious choice is to give our children the benefits of continuity, of security, of community. 

But yet, life is still hard at times. Our children still have struggles. Change and upheaval still follow the rhythm of school years. Seasons of life expand, contract, unfold, some blissfully peaceful, and some with jagged edges. 

So perhaps big life changes do not deserve as much credit - or blame - to molding our childhoods. Perhaps, in the end, it is the minutiae of the everyday that plays the largest role.