Today is the last day of First Grade for Reese. We’re having lots of big feelings, as a tumultuous school year comes to a close. We are so fortunate to have had wonderful teachers and a district that has managed an unprecedented-in-our-lifetimes event in an effective way.
Reese is excited for summer but very sad to say goodbye to school and her friends and teachers. It speaks volumes about an environment and its adults when a kid feels that way. Yes, she loves learning. But underneath that, I have to appreciate and look at the “why.” And it isn’t just our home environment; that love has come from a spectrum of adults who have genuinely leaned into making this situation work for kids.
The big feelings today of sadness about change, bittersweet feelings of good-bye to this chapter but excitement about the next, gratitude for the work the teachers have done, aren’t just being felt among the kiddos. I’m feeling them too, and I was caught off-guard by it.
A surprising effect of the pandemic and leaving a big company executive position to start Kind World is that it’s given me space to process emotions that I previously didn’t have bandwidth for. I have capacity to notice my feelings and to sit with them. To reflect on where they’re coming from and to put them in perspective. To slow down and cherish—yes, cherish—some sadness for a closing chapter, especially a good one.
I wonder how many of us are in similar situations? Finding space to feel things we didn’t or couldn’t previously process? Conversely, how many of us are in spaces now where that bandwidth is gone? Where there’s no room to process and so those big feelings keep piling up?
Social-emotional learning (SEL) has been a buzzword among education for some time now, and with good reason. But it’s also a real thing for us adults. We can’t help the kids in our lives with SEL if we’re not also doing some of that work. If you have the gift of time right now, are you using it to recognize some of your own big feelings? And if you know someone who could use that gift of time for some emotional breathing room, how might you create that space for them?
Happy, optimistic, sad, nervous, excited, wondering, curious, scared, relieved—experiencing these emotions means we’re alive. When we don’t have or take time to feel them, we’re missing an essential element of our existence. As I told Reese last night: being sad is a gift. It means we had a chance to experience something that’s worth missing.
Finding gratitude for change, after all, is a pretty big feeling.
nice. thank you! I never looked at sadness as being a gift, but feeling sad about something meant we’ve appreciated and cherished the happiness we received from that which makes us sad
Indeed! It really strikes me as the full circle of human emotions. We often put feelings into silos (e.g. sad = bad, happy = good), but we’re so much more complex than that. Having gratitude for sad moments is was a big aha moment for me. Thank you for reading!
Thank you so much for this post. I am right here with you in these thoughts. As a result of the pandemic, I was nudged into an early retirement and decided to delve into in-depth healing efforts, and let me tell you, the results were highly beneficial. This led to more moments of mindfulness and an appreciation for the full spectrum of ups and downs in life. Yes, it is possible to be grateful for all seasons. Thank you, again, for your words of wisdom.
Lovely…sending you an email…and sharing this.