So the kids finally went back to school, and they all lived Happily Ever After. The end.

Seemingly I will never learn about Happily Ever Afters.

It’s not that nice outcomes don’t exist – I’m not that far descended into cynicism. But nice round easy endings just… don’t.

There’s always an AFTERWARDS, that you don’t get to read about, that you haven’t thought through.

A big ending is never really an ending, is it? It’s usually just the beginning of something more mundane and boring and gruelling that no one’s interested in reading. Possibly there was a sequel but the publishers wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole, or it went straight to DVD.

I thought the kids going back to school (if only for 3 days so far) would be a finishing line. That I’d breathe a sigh of relief – even that I’d feel euphoric! Certainly that just making it this far would feel GOOD.

Well if your kids aren’t back yet, I’m here to tell you that it doesn’t, really.

I think it’s a bit like that thing that happens at work when you’ve been flat out towards a goal, or when there’s been an emergency, and you finally get the project over the line, or the disaster averted, and you sit down go or go off on holiday and immediately everything catches up with you all at once and you fall over.

All the stuff you ignored or staved off as you battened down the hatches, powered through and got the job done – hits you like a freight train. After the sort of guerilla parenting we’ve all been through over the last 5 months, fuelled only by biscuits and worry, I suppose it was inevitable.

Looking up, rather dazed, at the far edge of the lockdown mire I’ve just inefficiently dog paddled through and half drowned in, I find myself arrived not at the oasis I was expecting, but at a wee narrow ledge just before the plummet into the NEXT boggy terrain of infinite school uniforms to wash, school coronavirus rules to navitage, packed lunches to make, anxious children to cajole out the door on time, friendship dramas, nit letters, homework battles, the fresh reinforcement of bedtimes, negotiation of extra curricular activities, newly significant sniffles, and more kid-free time than I’ve had in half a year – and that isn’t QUITE as fun as I thought it would be.

You can’t go from 100 miles an hour, constant facetime and sky high anxiety down to 0 on all fronts, BAM, just like that.

There’s a crash.

I’d brought the uniform, the shoes, read the billion emails from the schools, but I hadn’t really PREPARED for this next bit.

There is still so much of EVERYTHING, isn’t there?

Not least the residual worry, and the prospect of a long winter battling children in the back of the car to shove swabs down their throats, and inevitable periods of random isolation…

We’ve reached the finish line, and there’s another bloody marathon.

So if you’re looking at your Facebook feed of celebrating parents and wondering why you’re feeling Oooofy and anti-climatic rather than amazing, this is probably it.

So I’m also here to tell you that it’s okay to have realised your life is not as magically better with the onset of school as maybe you’d hoped.

To have been thirstily looking forward to this moment like a holy grail – and to feel a bit deflated finding out it’s a plain old empty mug.

To have been craving normality, and alone time, and to still feel abnormal, and miss your kids like crazy.

To wonder if maybe you ARE crazy because you’re still not happy.

Because the only thing really certain in the story of parenting is uncertainty – and inconsistency.

Having children is, after all, the very hardest of all the Happily Ever Afters.

xxxxxx