The importance of 31 December is well documented, but no one ever talks about the angst of 22 July. Or 23, or 25, depending on where you live. But while the date may vary, the bittersweet feelings are surely universal. The end of the school year is an oddly profound moment.
This one’s hitting different in our house too, as our son is about to finish primary school. It’s poignant and nostalgic – wasn’t he just a baby yesterday? There is, however, one part of his cosy little school that I won’t miss.
Kids tend to walk home on their own from secondary school, so my pickup days will come to an end, and – hallelujah! – so will my experiences of spectacularly failing to make small talk with fellow parents while we wait, my cheeks burning with shame. The school should put up a plaque in memory of all the occasions when I have died inside.
Over the seven years my kid has been there, I have made some really good friends. But let’s be honest, mostly I’ve made nodding acquaintances with people with whom the only common ground is that our children are in the same year. Were it not for the fact that we all had sex at a similar time 11 years ago, our paths would never have crossed. Although I’m delighted that has only just occurred to me, because if I had realised earlier there is an excellent chance I would have announced it in the first conversational lull at the school gates.
Pickup is the same every day. Even if you desperately try not to catch anyone’s eye, you will be unable to avoid doing so, because there are so many of you congregating.
You greet each other with “Hello” and “How are you?”. Now and then, the gods smile on you and it will be pouring with rain, or snowing, or a bit warmer or colder than usual for the time of year, so you might get 30 seconds out of that. But then there will be a pause. And I guarantee I will fill it. Apparently, it takes four seconds for a silence to become uncomfortable, which doesn’t sound long, but if you count it out loud, it’s an age for two people to be standing together not saying anything. I freak out after less than two seconds.
It is as though all the information I have ever consumed is filed in my brain in a towering pile, with the most recent on the top and easiest to reach. There’s a gap in the chat, so I panic, and blurt out whatever is closest. I congratulated someone on her pregnancy who turned out to just be wearing dungarees as a fashion choice. Another time, I backed myself so tightly into a serial killer “joke” corner – “I’m not one of course … although that is what a serial killer would say” – that the other party appears to be actively afraid of me now. And once, because I had watched a Davina McCall documentary on menopause the night before, I talked about severe vaginal dryness, in an effort to end a silence with a virtual stranger and make things less awkward. Saying “vaginal” to someone you barely know in broad daylight, stone cold sober, is a big move. Maybe there are other words that would be worse to follow it up with than “dryness”, but I can’t think of many.
Don’t confuse my modus operandi with having no filter, which seems bold and intentional. This is accidental and anxious, a horrific kneejerk reaction. It feels uncontrollable.
Sometimes when I replay these embarrassing moments over and over again in my head during that sleepless night’s existential crisis, I realise I am undoubtedly remembering it as worse than it was. Not so here. The woman I said vaginal dryness to looked as if she wanted the playground to open up and swallow her. She probably avoids me to this day, but it’s hard to tell because I’m too busy avoiding her. Imagine how excruciating it will be if we ever speak again. Imagine what I might say next.
Well, when one door closes, another opens – watch out secondary school parents, I’m coming for you! (Not in a serial killer way, honest.)
Polly Hudson is a freelance writer
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