Getting Sick, Giving Up, Then Learning Something

One thing I like about reading blogs (and there's so much to like!) is recognizing myself in other peoples' words. It's delicious.

The other day I was reading this blog which I really like and had to laugh a little when I read this:

I have a medical condition which prevents me from homeschooling–my kids get on my nerves (there’s no cure).

Ha ha, I thought. That's funny. I think I have that same medical condition...my kids get on my nerves too. Then (realization dawning), but, I do homeschool.

Hmmmm...

So I've been thinking about it.

And I've been sick so I've had time to think about it.

I was talking to my sisters about it...fellow homeschoolers so they Get It. I was telling Marianne that I had stuff I Wanted to Do before school started because I wouldn't have time and she was commiserating with me about the time thing and we allowed ourselves a little fantasy conversation about what our respective lives would be like if we sent our kids to school. How clean our houses would be. How we would spend our time on other pursuits. How cranky we (maybe?) wouldn't be.

But fantasy over, we do homeschool and the beginning of the school year is breathing down my neck and I've been sick and haven't finished all my summer projects. Not nearly.

I've been trying to do bits and pieces but on Friday, I sort of gave up.

Temporarily.

I gave myself permission to be sick. Good old fashioned I-don't-care-what-you-do-kids-because-I'm-sick. (It all was going swimmingly until we ran out of cereal and yours truly hasn't been to Costco in a looooong time.) Yesterday I stayed mostly horizontal and I think it really did help my illness (that and the antibiotics that are pumping through me).

It also gave me pause. Time to think. And here's the Learning Something portion of the blog post.

Yesterday Adam and the kids cleaned the kitchen (lovely, lovely man) and then went to his dad's birthday party. I sat in my red recliner and read and cut recipes out of magazines (that I'll probably never actually prepare) and watched TV. Incidentally when you have limited basic cable, there's really nothing on ever that's very interesting and especially on Saturday afternoon.

Anyway, I'd wander into the kitchen occasionally (for one of the 7 pills that I'm taking every day) and it would still be clean!

Amazing!

How can a kitchen stay clean all day?

Then it occurred to me that my children were gone and that's why. Then I slipped into that sending them to school fantasy, This is how it would be if they went to school...all day...every day...a perpetually clean kitchen.

Then a hollowness filled me that was more hollow than the empty house.

I really missed my kids. Since I've been sick, I've been sort of a vacant presence in the house. They walk by me occasionally and look in horror at my infected eye and tell me they're sorry I'm sick but I miss them. I miss being with them for all the ins and outs of every day. When I consider how grown they've become (without my permission I must add) in such a short space of time, I can't imagine not spending those precious days, homeschooling them. Them getting on my nerves. Them messing up the kitchen. All the arguing and frustration and exhaustive work of it all. It's my choice. And I love it. Because when they learn something, it's exciting. When they make me laugh, it's better than chocolate. And when I get to spend every day with three of my favorite people in the world, it's a good life.

And I'm glad I remembered that. Even though it took an eerily clean kitchen to remind me.