Every year around this time, the boys’ school sends out an email to a select group of parents: those whose kids are receiving an award at the Presentation Day Assembly. Every year around this time, my butt gets sweaty when I wonder if this email has gone out yet and I haven’t gotten one, or if the correspondence has yet to be transmitted–the old “is everyone hanging out without me” anxiety. I’ve been on both sides of this virtual aisle–the gifted inbox and the empty, the marking of the calendar and the leaving it blank.

This year I got two emails–the absolute best-case scenario so that one boy couldn’t lord it over the other–and marked my diary accordingly, then wondered who else of my friends had been similarly #blessed and who had not and when the awkwardness would crop up. There is an unwritten rule not to mention such things too soon–or maybe I’ve just made that up–and typically people wait until they’re about to burst either with excitement or from a desperation to know if everyone is, indeed, hanging out without them, and who exactly “everyone” is this year (again, I’ve been on both sides).

It’s all things, this process: exciting, fraught, depressing, glorious, gross. For my part, I turn into anything from a sincerely questioning individual to an avid conspiracy theorist. I may believe Biden won the election and the vaccine is legit, but when it comes to my kids I will entertain any theory under the sun regarding any information that could threaten their well-being. “My mind is like a bad neighbourhood,” writes Anne Lamott. “I try not to go there alone.” Same, girl. This has been all too easy lately with distractions like Netflix, true crime podcasts, and social media, but occasionally my forays into the darkest corners of my mental suburbs turn up some real scary shit. Did The Kid actually receive the votes to be a class leader yet was snubbed because of his disability? And this year, when all his class awards had been given out and Little Brother was still empty-handed and turned back to me like, “What the hell? You said I was getting one,” I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d misread the email or someone was having a joke at my expense.

BUTT SWEAT.

Contrast this with the school’s annual dance concerts, one day of two performances and bottomless exhaustion. Everyone gets to (read: is required) to participate, and though the routines are pretty uniform in choreography across the class groups, each kid puts their own spin on the number. Which meant that I got to watch–twice–as TK nervously approached the stage then, in true TK fashion, smiled his way through his dance while LB, fresh off complaints about stomach pain that were, I believe, actually anxiety, pursed his lips and squinted his eyes in concentration and an effort to get. it. exactly. RIGHT. They both made it through, in their own way.

And I made it through: through the dance performances, where regrettably there is no open bar, and through the awards presentation, where regrettably there was no air conditioning. I sat, the back of my dress soaked through with sweat, battling excitement and anxiety, pride and confusion (TK himself was confused about getting the PE award but didn’t turn it down). I watched people who’ve always seemed to not care about this sort of thing melt with pride about their own kids. We all thrive on recognition–anyone who says they don’t is a lying liar–because who doesn’t want to be seen? And perhaps even more, want their kids to be seen? Although is this actually, really being seen? Awards season itself can be a bad neighbourhood, and we are not given emotional bulletproof vests when we become parents (I’ve checked; they don’t exist).

So we “win” and don’t “win,” and we counsel our kids through their ups and downs as we navigate them ourselves alongside them, and I listen as the school’s staff keeps using the word learners to describe the youngest among us, knowing that we are all that: learning, struggling, stumbling around trying to figure it out and get it right, whatever that means. Let me know if you figure it out. I’ll be on the couch, rehydrating and sleeping off this latest performance and CBT-ing and praying and meditating my way through remembering what matters most.