Its only Kindergarten.

I am censoring myself from myself and trying to dig out of the bullshit to investigate what it is I am truly feeling right now.

We've done it. We've signed H up for the friends school I always knew we'd find a way to send her to. I am still not sure about 'the way' we will do this, but we have signed a contract and put a deposit down that we will find 'a way'. Luckily they didn't ask us details about 'the way'. Smoke and mirrors, and probable statistics. That's the plan we're working on. Hope and Probability. Incorporated. That's us.

I made up my mind where H would go, with out really considering anything else. I went through some motions, hemmed and hawed, weighed options, but all along I knew she'd go to this school. Its too personal, this school. This religion, as it turns out. Who knew? Who knew I would actually become what I was "raised" (I can hear my sister saying "we weren't raised...") The school seems like an extension of me. How egotistical is that? It embodies everything I think is important. They teach the way I try to live. They have the same values I do. They teach the world.

I wanted to be happy when she got accepted, and I was, but...
I wanted to be happy with their generous offer of financial aid. Award they call it. I was, but...

I am happy H will be going there. No really. No, really, really I am. Its just that is much more complicated that I thought it was going to be. I thought you just fill out the forms, wait, wait, wait some more, if the numbers seem reasonable you do it. (Reasonable here is relative. Its like bridal money, the cake costs 1,000? Well thats reasonable, considering I just read that this other cake costs $5000.)

H is happy, I told her that she'd be going to kindergarten at the same place we go to Meeting. Where she went that day to play (for her evaluation) She lit up, "I didn't know that was a school! I like it there!" So thats good. She's probably happy I am addressing the topic of kindergarten, finally. I haven't really talked to her about it before, I realized today. She hears all this kindergarten whispering going on, they talk about kindergarten at her school- I image kindergarten in her mind as this big looming future event. That stresses her parents out beyond belief.

I know its our decision, but I felt the need to bounce it off everyone I know. Very few are bouncing it back positively though. I'm finding an elitism towards public school. I'm finding lashing out of those who have chosen public school. I feel myself being called a hypocrite, a snob. (Ok. By one person. Indirectly. But it stung. I'm taking it personally.) It has never come to pass that I'm in line with the masses, doing what most people are doing, and this time I'm not even going against the grain on purpose. Somewhere around here, private school became evil. I don't know, maybe its the cost. Maybe its the community. Maybe its the under dog mentality of where I live.

I know its right, but why does it still feel hard?

I wasn't expecting sending my daughter to private school would feel so much like I'm swimming upstream.

***
Seriously, if I didn't have a spin class today I would be stuck to the ceiling. All this school shit has me wound so tight I can't breathe. Then I get stressed wondering how I'm going to vomit if I can't even breathe. Because I am so stressed from not breathing that I get nauseous. Then I get stressed that I'm so stressed and so on. And over and over. So thank god for the spin class, because I felt pretty good after that. I could breathe, and I could have even vomited if I wanted to, but I didn't feel the need. Brilliant.

But then I went to get my poor abandoned angle baby from the child care room. Still sitting in the chair where I'd left her. An hour earlier. She didn't eat her snack, and the tv wasn't even on. She just sat there, probably holding back tears. So brave! For. an. hour. I don't know what I'm going to do about this. I'm going next week, if she sits in the chair for a solid hour again I'll have to come up with a new plan. Maybe I'll go at night. When I'm supposed to be working. Or maybe I'll re-embrace the craziness and learn to love being on the ceiling.