Your mom packed your lunchbox and you can finally start wearing the back-to-school shoes she bought you over the summer. It’s been many years since I had a “first day of school” but I still remember the excitement of everything feeling fresh and new. Especially the school supplies.

There is nothing better than a new box of crayons to start out the school year! It was a bonus if your mom splurged on the 64-pack of Crayola. I was always super careful when opening them making sure to do so on the perforation lines so the box didn’t rip. I always enjoyed the fresh waxy smell and seeing all of the crayons standing straight and tall in the tiered box. Didn’t having sharp crayons make your picture much more enjoyable to color? I always thought so. Thank goodness for the built-in sharpener.

A spanking new pack of pencils also brought me joy. I loved sharpening them for the first time and seeing the shavings fall to the floor. Hopefully, your eraser on top wasn’t the kind that smeared and ripped a hole in your paper. That was always a bummer. Solving math problems with a super sharp pencil always gave me extra confidence to find the correct answer.

Why was it that writing in a fresh spiral notebook for the first time in middle school always commanded your best handwriting? Then, by the second week of school, it’s back to relaxed scribbles. After a month, graffiti emerges on the once pristine cover of many students’ notebooks and book covers. I, for one, did not partake in the early demise of my school supplies. I kept them neat and tidy and was” that person” who took the time to pull out the paper scraps inside the spiral when you ripped a piece of paper out.

In my eyes, there was something magical about starting a new school year. Perhaps it was the excitement of seeing my friends again or getting to wear my new school clothes that my mom got out of layaway in late August. When I hear the buses on our street in September I think there will be a kid like me who can’t wait to use their brand new magic markers and glue sticks and will never fail to put the caps back on!