The Day After

Yesterday was a brush with insanity, that's for sure. It's OK though, it's working itself out just like it should.

We awoke this morning to find the sunshine bright and the world covered in fluffy new snow. Granted it was several inches, the drift on the court yard circle is again above a standard car, but it's nice. New snow is one of the things that make winters in this part of the world a wonderful thing. Without them, I think a lot of us would loose it. Just plain cold and brown for weeks on end? No thank you. I'd rather shovel up the white stuff now and again.

Today the pendulum is again swinging. See, I'm still growing up. Even though I'm getting closer and closer to 40, I'm far from being a "real" grown up. Or at least that's how it sometimes seems to me.

I don't do a very good job of living my life. I do a great job of looking around and comparing. That's when the trouble starts.

I start making plans, check lists, schedules and more plans. I start to dream about and plan for our organized, neat and tidy life. I stress out myself because nothing "goes the way it should". I drive the whole family nuts.

They are kind and forgiving about it, after they get done rebelling.

I'm still trying to balance out the necessary amount of structure and rules with the way that I naturally am. I loath being on any sort of structure. I love to just live it all as it comes. But at the same time, it fills me with fear. Somehow, I can never really give in and just let it all go. Just let us really be all those scary things with loose ends. So we chafe just a little in the schedules.

It's that crazy sort of dual mind. I want the kids to be those home school kids who have all these things checked off, but I also want them to be those exploring kids who are left to themselves. I want to be the mom who has it all together, yet I want to be the mom who reads and writes. I want them to "know their stuff" so they can have a "real life" after homeschool, but I want them to love life, love learning, be creative and alive. I want us to be a part of the world, participating in activities and being part of groups, but I still want to be relaxed and not caring about image and clothes and pop culture.

It's a puzzle this life. How do you put together the pieces of a happy, fun childhood with the world out side your door? How does one be a part of the working world and yet embrace something else?

I know. More questions than answers today. More wondering and scary thoughts from inside my mind than concrete anything. Sometimes the sanity is just in filtering the words out of the body.

It came in a Harry Potter moment. Dumbledore had a thing that he could siphon off his extra thoughts and memories to. He could go back later and sort them, relive them, understand them, but yet they did not have to be floating around inside his head and causing a great clutter of the mind. I'd love to have one of those things.

But I don't. So this is the spot that a lot of the thoughts drop into. Not all of them, but quite a few.

It's a day where I'm embracing the fact that even though we haven't yet cracked a book, the kids are all playing together. There is no fighting or yelling. They moved on to drawing all on their own. They are collaborating and cooperating. Problems are being solved by them, not me. They are sharing. There is sanity. Relative peace. It's not quiet. It never will be, it's a house with kids. It's a home. With a family in it. If it were quiet, it'd be wrong somehow.

The required sorts of learning will come later this afternoon. The alive sorts of learning will come all around and in between.

Maybe, it's just not Monday.