The dream began way back when I first had the crazy idea of homeschooling nearly two years ago, and its seeds were in the blogs I read of families who had created for themselves a life of adventure and learning together. The dream they sparked in me was tantalizing. It was so different from anything I’d seen lived out around me, so rich in opportunities for good family relationships, so creative, beautiful and natural. I wanted a life like that. It was the hippy in me I guess, the one that has been with me ever since I was born to a pair of hippies in 1974.
Those blogs I read sparked many hours of dreaming of a different life for us, and wondering how I could take our very ordinary lives and weave something more out of them. I was longing for something I felt we didn’t have. I wanted to create something that was uniquely us. I wanted to do family our own way.
So when we decided to homeschool Isobella it was a decision that brought great joy – to all of us – but especially to me. I loved every moment I spent reading about homeschooling and thinking about how we would make it happen, and turning this room from a study to a playroom was a big part of that. Every moment of organizing and shifting and sorting and tidying made me so happy. I was making my dream happen.
And most of the time, the room worked. The girls loved playing in it and when friends were over they were usually in there. I loved standing in there after the kids were in bed and looking over from the family corner to the table and chairs to the bookcase with the kids’ books and homeschooling things on it. I would stand there smiling. My dream was happening. Last November when homeschooling suddenly became going to “real” school (you read about that here) the playroom got neglected. The homeschooling resources got messy and were largely ignored, and I didn’t go in there and stand smiling anymore. Actually, I would go in there and feel sad, because the room now reminded me of that dream. The one I was very confused about. The one that I felt I’d given up on, by making the decision for Isobella to start school.
And so the room stayed, half-loved and half-ignored. Starting school was a big upheaval and took a lot of our focus, then there was Christmas and summer, and then getting back into school again with the New Year. I quietly got on with getting myself into a writing routine. Then about a month ago I realized how much both Paddy and I needed a study. I had a fleeting escapade with the idea of moving house, and then one night when I couldn’t sleep I realised we could have everything we wanted in a house (other than more space) right where we are. The idea of a study had come back again. The playroom was dismantled. The girls went back to all sleeping in the same room. Their toys have been downsized and re-arranged, and, amazingly, it works. I am sitting at my old, favourite desk in front of a window with a lovely outlook, filled with trees and sky. It’s not too squashy, we even have a blank wall (the only one in the house!!) and it feels good. Paddy can get away to work, and I can get away to write.
But sitting in the corner to my right is that bookcase. In the same place as it had been when this was the playroom, still cluttered with the remains of our homeschooling things waiting to be… sorted? Given away? Put in storage? I have been ignoring them, focusing on the rest of the room, putting off the inevitable. They are the remains of the playroom, and therefore, the remains of the dream.
I can’t tell you right now whether that dream was simply for a season of time, or whether it was about my misguided attempts to re-create my own childhood. I can’t tell you right now if we made a mistake in homeschooling, and will one day look back on it as a “blip” or whether we made a mistake in giving up homeschooling, and will one day regret sending Ella to school. I can’t tell you whether I let myself get caught up in envy as I read those homeschooling blogs, and tried to create a homeschooling life as a way of trying to create a “perfect” family.
But I can tell you that when I look at those homeschooling things on the shelf, I feel a pang of longing. And when I sat down with ella yesterday afternoon and got her to write a story with me, it felt so good. And I can tell you that when I stood in the kitchen and looked back at our dining table with Ella there writing a story and Greer next to her doing her own “work” that I suddenly cried, big, wet tears of joy.
Am I happy to be in this study writing while Isobella is at school and Greer at kindy? Yes. Am I happy for Isobella who loves school and is very excited about her cross-country race tomorrow? Yes. Will I keep a couple of shelves here and maybe even a box in the kitchen for homeschooling things? Definitely. Is the dream still alive? Absolutely. Do I know what it looks like? No! But I’m dreaming on…
Sometimes dreams are works in progress. Sometimes we know what they feel like but not what they look like. Sometimes we don’t even know that much, yet we sense the longing for them deep within us, and are compelled to grasp for them, blindly. Sometimes in our grasping we reach out and find nothing but air, but still we reach out again. I’m convinced it’s all part of living the dream. Every failed attempt, every disappointment or change in plan is all living the dream. And every moment we put words to our longings, let them live and breath out of us even when it hurts, we are living the dream.
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