“When we say that ‘God is love’, we do not mean that God’s love is the same as any earthly love that we have known…We are saying, though, that there is a reality, love, that exists; it is the most precious relation in the world. It is what we are like if we are ever at our best–what we should dream to be.”
~Steven Cone, Theology from the Great Tradition~

I don’t know any other way to say this, but for a long time, homeschooling really was kind of the dream life. The journals I kept remind me that it wasn’t always, but the fondness I hold for our homeschooling years and the people who filled them is something that can never be taken from me. It’s funny, even leading up to the week before, I would run into a pile of math books and think, “You know? Maybe I really could do this again.” As I type, the book piles remain as a work in progress in the schoolroom. Again, the week before school, when I had yet to fully decide in my heart which path we were taking, or to fully accept the path already laid out for us, I came across The Epic of Gilgamesh. I started a new pile, designated as “Books We Are Going to Read This Year.”

But every time I tried to take that path, it was like an image appeared in my mind of a door. I somehow knew that the door was for homeschooling. Taped across the door was a sign with bold letters, with a single word: “No.” In front of the door, as if I was watching myself from an outside place, was my body on its side, curled up in a ball. My head rested on a rock as a pillow. It was like the part of me that had always said, “I can do anything, I will do anything…” had laid down in front of the door and said, “I can’t”. The other parts of me looked around. They said nothing to each other and nothing to the part of me curled up in a ball. It was no use trying to tell her to reconsider or get up, not that anyone tried to do so. They stood there in silence and said, “Ok”.

This morning I went to the Y and swam. This was the second time I’ve gone this week. The grade school is only a few miles away from the Y, which is a different one than I have gone to in past times. Even more than walking, where my legs and heart must carry the extra weight of my upper body, the non-weightbearing activity I’m allowed in the water feels to me doable and healing right now. The paddle-boarding has also been good. Overall school for everyone here has been going well. I’ve got an assignment due this weekend where we’re supposed to use our readings and scholarly articles to write a 5-page paper about self-care. Five doesn’t seem like enough pages to cover that, but I’m also glad it doesn’t have to be any longer. That’s what I’m needing to get started on now.