Tim and I attended my oldest kid’s back to school night for high school yesterday. She will be an incoming freshman, so it’s all new to her. We saw the building a little bit during enrollment in the spring, but this was different because she was given her schedule and encouraged to walk the halls, finding all of her classes before school starts. The high school is big and has two floors, so it’s a smart call. 

In addition to finding her classrooms and meeting her teachers, we ran into many people that we have known over the last eleven years of living here in Hillsboro. We moved into town when Eliana was three and now she is fourteen. She has attended a local preschool, and elementary, but spent middle school several miles across town at the charter school.

She was pretty excited to see her friends from Lincoln Street where she attended for seven years. In our eyes, the kids all jumped up from being sixth graders to ninth graders and that’s a big step to see. But that was nothing compared to the preschool families we haven’t seen in a decade. It’s one thing to see a kid grow a few inches, its mind blowing to see a kid last when they were four years old and then see them again at 14. Over and over again. It was like rapid time travel. 

If we lost touch with them over the ten-year gap, Eliana did not recognize her old friends and I don’t blame her. The last time she saw one little girl they were swinging together on the playground and now she’s five-foot-tall teenager in a volleyball uniform. Some kids, I only I recognized because of their parents. We all basically look the same, just tireder versions. Despite my promise to not be embarrassing, I hugged so many people. Along the way we’ve shared our hopes and dreams for our kids. Seeing each other again, we instantly recognized all the effort that we’ve put in to get this far. Just four more years!