And we begin again

It's the first day of school again and I feel like I'm supposed to pose on the front step in my new shirt, holding my lunchbox and wearing a backpack and a giant smile of excitement about all the brain-broadening that's about to happen in the coming months. (All this so my mother can take a picture). And yet despite that buried excitement that I still feel I'm also overcome with minor exhaustion, coming out of a week-long (or month-long) push to finish things, to be ready, and of course I'm not. But that's normal, as is me waking up early and leaving Ethan happily asleep; yogurt waiting in the fridge; putting off work to be online; ironing with a spraybottle and hoping no one notices. The courses are new, the computer is new, the house is new (and farther away), but everything else maintains its holding pattern, deep with inhaled breath waiting for the fall.