leaning in
There’s nothing like a good before and after; but, for some reason, we rarely talk about all of the unspoken messiness in the middle. It could be because it’s not as glamorous, but the messy middle is where the nitty gritty beauty begins. That’s where I sat with home education this summer, the messy middle, hunting and yearning for beauty.
This seasoned homeschooler was fried. After years of speech and occupational and physical therapies, specialty diets, being the legit weirdo homeschoolers in the neighbor? We are sorta basically mainstream homeschoolers. But I’m tired, depleted, reserves emptied. I leaned into caring for others and skipped self-care much too long.
I knew I needed to push on, but honestly, I didn’t even want to. My apathetic passion (a flip flop back and forth) translated to curt conversations here.
I didn’t tell anyone how I was feeling...cause, we are like, in a pandemic and all and who would really want to hear it?
“Knowing that our home education journey wasn’t finished, I needed to stop dwelling ON the hard things & start of dwelling IN them. ”
I had to sit in the discomfort long enough to identify what changes needed to be made. I needed to sit in discomfort long enough to remember why we even started home education. In 2009, I didn’t hop on the homeschool wagon with glee(goodness, should I even admit that?). We started out of recognition that we had a child that would benefit by the flexibility.
When I got back to the foundational roots of that why, it made continuing on renewed with purpose.
With purpose, I could find meaning.
With meaning, my reserves filled.
With reserves filled, I found focus.
I had found focus because of sitting in the messy middle of a summertime journey.
I also had to remember that empty buckets can’t spill.
I also had to remember that empty buckets can’t spill. I couldn’t physically continue at the same intense pace for another year. There were curriculum changes and learning curves and then...one mancub decided to push on through the summer months to graduate early-cue college applications and a high school transcript that needed to completed.
My emotions once again tried to run the show.
Overwhelm tried to whisper its allegiance to defeat.
Once again, I needed to lean IN.
We converted from a routine to a schedule. It had never previously occurred to me that the mancubs were ready to make that leap.
You may not be sitting surrounded by curriculums with fractions or phonics, geography or human physiology, but that doesn’t mean your messy cannot be leaned INto and transformed into an amazing after story. The messy middles where we surrender our will, dwell IN the tough stuff, dig deep in pondering reflection, and follow the journey we were created to walk? Those journeys offer wisdom and grit we never would understand otherwise.
“The messy middle is where your victory begins.”
