Category Archives: passions

July 5, 2014 · 10:33 AM

Chasing Your Passion

I don’t really remember what I wanted to be when I grew up when I was six. Sure, I have fleeting memories of pretending I was Wonder Woman for a time in Kindergarten, and later on, Spiderman (apparently super heroes were a big thing for me). I remember being enthralled with the movie, Splash, and having a dramatic and theatrical panic attack every time it rained, lest I accidentally get wet and people discover that I am, in fact, a mermaid.

As I got a little bit older, I was sure I wanted to be an Olympic gymnast. Then it was a hair stylist and make-up artist – though I’m fairly certain that that one was merely peer pressure, as that was the popular career aspiration amongst my little friends at the time. Sometime after that, I had a great teacher who got me interested in science, and I fantasized for a long time about how cool it’d be to be a scientist, or work in a lab of some sort, making those important discoveries that would save all of man-kind from its certain fate.

The only one that really remained consistent though, from the time I was in second grade until the present time, was my desire to be a writer. That was the one that nagged at me, the one that stayed even during the moments of self-doubt and flagellation. I was a writer, dammit. Maybe not sexy or exciting to the world’s standards, unless you’re a Stephen King or a John Grisham, but it was (and is) my passion nonetheless.

Thinking about writing at 40 still gets me as inspired and excited as that little girl pretending to be a Mermaid. And as a side note, a shampoo bottle stands in beautifully as an Oscar statue, when you’re in the shower imagining you’re accepting your award for best original screenplay.

But I digress.

Tegan is six at the time of this writing, and her life’s passion at the moment is to be a performer, particularly a dancer. Now I don’t know if it is a fleeting interest, or the one that’s going to “stick”, but it is real and it is strong. And the thing is, it doesn’t matter if she’ll forget all about it by next week, or if it’s a fire that will stay inside of her the rest of her life. Right now. Today. That’s her passion, and it’s my job to support it.

I think one of the best – and most important – things I get to do as a parent and an unschooler is to help provide the people, places and things that help facilitate my children’s passions. When Tegan first expressed such an interest in the Arizona Sidewinders, and dancing/cheerleading in general, I started looking around to see what I could do. Was there a class she could take? A Wii game she’d like? We looked up YouTube videos for hours, we watched interviews with the girls, we studied clips of their auditions. And then, in an answer to my unspoken prayer: I stumbled on an ad for a clinic to 1) have a meet and greet with the Sidewinders, 2) learn a dance with them, and 3) perform it at the next Rattlers half-time show. Are you kidding me? It was her dream come true.

It was almost two months ago now, and she still talks about it pretty much daily. She loves to work it in to casual conversation…. “you know that time I performed in front of 10,000 people…” The pride she feels in having done it is immense and indescribable. She still looks at her pictures of the Sidewinders all the time. Still draws pictures of them. Still watches videos. Still talks about the day when she can officially try out (12 years and counting).

Our girl’s easy to spot. She’s the one with the biggest smile of the bunch.

And if the interest eventually fades, and she moves on to other things, it won’t matter. Nothing will take away from what’s she’s gained from this time in her life. And as a parent? Oh. My. Gosh. The pure, unadulterated, flat-out joy I get in helping my children pursue their dreams and explore their passions, knowing that they know I took them seriously, that I shared in their excitement, that I believed in their goals … there is nothing better.

It’s even better than a shampoo bottle Oscar.

3 Comments

Filed under parenting, passions, unschooling

March 28, 2012 · 8:37 AM

Living Your Purpose

This past Saturday we got the opportunity to do something cool. A fellow unschooling friend emailed to tell me about her sister, who is 5 months into a cross-country trip on horseback (how awesome is that??). She was going to be traveling somewhat through our area, and wanted to know if we could help in any way. I’d at first thought we could at least help with route info, since we do so much off-roading, but it turned out she was further south than we were familiar with. We didn’t have a place to tether her horses for the night, and she wasn’t going to be close enough to our area to make that part practical anyway. So we did the next best thing we could think of.

After a few phone conversations back and forth, we loaded up our trailer with a bale of hay, a bunch of water, the fold-able table we take camping, and a cooler packed with picnic fixings, a bunch of fruit, and some wine. (It turns out the horses enjoyed pickles just as much the carrots and apples we’d brought, and while they were definitely interesting in sniffing the wine, they didn’t actually want to drink any :))

We met Sea and her horses at a lovely lake she’d found to camp at.

We unpacked all the food, and ending up eating – and visiting – late into the night. It was a beautiful night, warm and dry, and the sky was full of stars (something you take for granted until you live in a city like Phoenix). We became fast friends with the horses, and us humans easily chatted about everything from unschooling to science museums to following your dreams.

I went home that night feeling energized and inspired, and it wasn’t until the next day at church – during a sermon about living your purpose in life – that I fully realized why. People who are following their dreams, no matter what those dreams may be, are always interesting and inspiring. People who are living their purpose have to really LIVE. You can’t ride across the country on horseback and do it halfway. You have to commit, and you have to do it.

Wonderful evening, and wonderful lesson.

You can follow their inspiring journey on their blog, Free Range Rodeo.

3 Comments

Filed under adventures, inspirational, passions

March 13, 2012 · 3:26 PM

Worms, field trips, and some plans for the future

Yesterday morning, the kids and I went on a field trip that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about since. It was actually only the first stop in one of those crazybusyexhaustingbutfun kind of days – the kind that had us leaving the house at 9:00 AM and not returning until 6:30 PM – but it’s the stop that won’t leave my mind.

We toured a city home whose owners had transformed it into a sustainable, completely eco-friendly living space. And it was awesome. I will always hold out hope that we’ll have a nice piece of land again someday (sometimes it still befuddles me that a country girl like me wound up in a city the size of Phoenix, of all places) but yesterday’s tour reminded me that I don’t have to have a big chunk of land in order to make some huge – and hugely impactful – changes to the way we live.

On this less than 8,000 square foot plot, this family utilized:

They also had chickens; an outdoor shower; many edible, multi-functional and indigenous plants; bee blocks; a small greenhouse; rebar shade structures… and much more that I’m forgetting. The entire space was careful and deliberately designed, and nothing – not so much as a drop of rainwater – was wasted.

All right there on this little plot, in a regular old neighborhood, right in the middle of a city.

Inspiring.

I came home filled with ideas, and looking at our current housing situation with new perspective. Lately we’ve been talking about the possibility of moving again (locally) and have been sifting through our options. Unfortunately, because like so many millions of other Americans right now we are woefully underwater on our house, our options are few. We’re starting at the only place we can start, by culling our clutter, organizing our finances, and getting the house ready for someone who will really love it. When we do move (and I say “when” instead of “if” because I believe it will happen) if we can recreate even half of what this beautiful family has designed, I will be happy.

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Filed under eco, field trips, inspirational, life, passions, pets, plans

February 17, 2012 · 7:40 PM

Where my book begins

Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten ~Natasha Bedingfield

So Dan of Single Dad Laughing has done it again. Every so often, he writes something that I can relate to so deeply that it almost physically hurts. His recent post, Whose Life is it Anyway? now tops that list. In it, he writes about his learning to live life on his own terms, rather than for someone else. He tells of the process of finding his own voice, and ultimately leaving a church, a marriage, and a job on his path to happiness.

I’ve never left a marriage (in fact I consider myself very blessed – and lucky – that after having married at 19 with no earthly idea of who we were, that we were able to come into our own beside each other) But I’ve left a church. I’ve left a job. And six years ago, I left New Hampshire. I left New England. I left the entire east coast.

When I look back on old pictures, even of times that were happy, I will often feel a strange disconnect. Sometimes I even feel a profound sadness. I don’t know that person in those photos. She’s a person who made choices not based on what she wanted (and honestly, she wouldn’t know what she wanted even if you asked her) but based on everyone else around her. A person whose entire life… from the colleges she went to, to what she studied, to the kind of wedding she had, to what city she lived in, to what house she lived in… was decided, at least in part, by someone else. She lived her life in a box. And don’t get me wrong. It was a nice box, a lovely box. But it was a box all the same, and it wasn’t a box of her choosing.

I’m here to tell you that you can only live in a box for so long before the walls start closing in. Before you start gasping for breath. Before you start suffocating.

When people ask why we moved to Phoenix, I’m often left grasping for words. It was a big decision, and there were many factors. It was a joint decision too, so I can’t fairly speak for my husband. But I can say out loud for the very first time – and without hesitation – that for me, the biggest reason was clear:

I was suffocating.

I was 32 years old, and I had no idea who I was. I’d never made a decision on my own. I’d never stopped trying to please everyone around me. I’d never given more than a cursory thought to what it was that I wanted, so focused I was on what my family wanted, what society wanted, what the church wanted.

I couldn’t do it anymore.

So six years ago, I started living life on my own terms (and by the way, when I say “my” terms, I mean my terms within the larger framework of God’s terms. Which, ironically – or not – is a concept I hadn’t even begun to grasp until I’d left the church I grew up in.) It was the start of an adventure, to be sure, and a journey that is in turns exhilarating and terrifying and exhausting and just plain awe-inspiring. For the first time in my entire life I’m getting to know and listening to ME. Not society’s version of me, or my parent’s version of me, or even my husband’s version of me. Just ME, the me I was individually created to be.

And it feels so good.

One of the greatest things about it though? Once I started being true to myself, I realized that that respect, that authenticity, that truth that I was living started spilling out into the rest of my relationships as well. It’s made me a better wife. It’s made me a better mother. Which makes sense when you think about it, because how can you really give of yourself if you don’t even know who “yourself” is? How can you expect to have an authentic relationship with anyone if you can’t first be authentic with yourself? I have heard it said over and over that people who are hurting hurt others. So wouldn’t the opposite be true? That those who show love to themselves are then able to love others?

I spent three decades being partially immobilized by fear, anxiety, insecurity, and “what ifs.” Moving across the country was the catalyst that began to change all of that. It made me feel brave. It made me feel like if I could do that, I could do anything. And do anything I will!

I’m not suggesting that a 1800 mile cross-country move is the answer for everyone. But you know what, maybe it is. Or maybe it’s leaving that job. Or that church. Or that unhealthy relationship. Maybe it’s taking that pottery class, or belly dancing lesson, or volunteering in that soup kitchen. Maybe it’s the haircut you’ve always been too scared to get, or the tattoo you were afraid your dad would disapprove of, or the hobby your friends think is silly.

Two days ago, I sent in my enrollment paperwork for yoga teacher training, something I have been wanting to do – and putting off for various reasons – for years now. When I woke up the next morning, I felt more excited than I’ve felt in years. And it wasn’t just about the yoga. I was excited about life. I’m excited about all of it. I’m excited about the yoga; I’m excited about new friends; I’m excited about the shiny, colorful rings that I’ll transform into lovely chain maille jewelry; I’m excited about the mess on my head that will one day be beautiful and mature dreadlocks; I’m excited to know that I won’t be afraid to just chop it all off if I change my mind; I’m excited to get another tattoo; I’m excited to get better with my camera; I’m excited about cupcakes; I’m excited to write and to read and to learn and to grow; I’m excited for road trips and park days and singing loudly with my children and having drinks with my girlfriends; I’m excited about new adventures with the kids and new experiences with my husband.

I’m excited, for the first time in my life, to be REAL.

This. This is where my book begins. And it. is. awesome.

5 Comments

Filed under about me, adventures, Arizona, learning, life, passions, random

January 1, 2012 · 9:47 AM

New Year, new plans

I say these words every year – every year – but, I love New Years. I do. And it’s silly really, because it’s a day like any other day. ANY day is a good day to make a change. ANY day is a good day to try something new. ANY day is a good day for a fresh start. I know that, and I practice that. But there’s still just something about that 1/1 on the calendar… that promise of newness and hope and possibility… that makes my heart flutter.

I haven’t done resolutions for a while now, but I do do (heh, I said do-do) goals. And for the past three years, I’ve made a virtual dream board. I save it, print it out, and it then looks back at me from my bulletin board all year long.

Because life is circular, not linear, and because a lot of pursuits don’t start or end with the new year, my boards tend to look very similar year after year. In fact, this year I just changed a couple of things.

It all starts with faith and family, so that will always remain front and center.

I don’t ever want to stop traveling, exploring, and enjoying the outdoors, so that’s there too. Last year was a nearly month-long cross-country road trip. There won’t be such a trip this year, but we are planning a ten-day vacation in San Diego this fall, as well as many local excursions to the beautiful desert and mountains.

In the upper left-hand corner is my consummate reminder to continue focusing on paying off our debt. It’s not sexy, but for better or worse it plays a rather pivotal role in how we live our lives, so there it is. This year, my hope is to not only reach our number goal by the end of the year, but to surpass it. I want to contribute to the cause myself this year, by bringing in some money of my own for the first time in a long while.

My favorite part of the board this time – and the part I’ll be focusing a lot of energy on – is the entire right-hand side: The playing, the creating, the inspiring, the JOY. The girl is about to be four years old, and when all the boys were four I also had a brand-new baby. This time there will be no more babies. While I’m at peace with it, and am very much enjoying this stage of all the kids’ lives, there’s a part of me that is profoundly sad to know that that chapter in my life is over. I don’t want to focus on the sad. I want to focus on the joy… both the joy I find in the kids, and the joy I find in my own creative pursuits… those things I willingly set aside when they were babies. I can’t wait to devote some time to creating again. Creating music, art, words, jewelry. I am re-learning how to play the piano. I just started playing with chain maille. I have some specific ideas for my blog, and for the e-books I keep ~~threatening~~ promising to finish. AND, God-willing, this spring I will enroll in the yoga teacher training program I have been eyeing for the past three years, and have my RYT by the end of July. If for whatever reason it doesn’t happen this year, as long as I’m still working towards it – as long as I’m still learning and trying and creating and practicing and yoga-ing – I’ll be happy.

Happy 2012. May it be full of new and exciting and beautiful things.

2 Comments

Filed under about me, Law of Attraction, New Years, passions, plans

February 7, 2011 · 6:18 PM

What are we proud of?

Little Johnny made the honor roll again. Suzy gets 100% on all her spelling tests, and is reading above her grade level. Bob aced his SATs. Karen got accepted into Dartmouth. Steve made the Dean’s list. Henry landed a high-paying job with a big signing bonus. Ken and Tina bought a new house with the white picket fence when they were still fresh from their honeymoon.

Those are all nice and lovely – if you care about those kinds of things – but…

What does it even mean? Is this what we’re on the earth for? To participate in some great race to… somewhere… where the prizes are good grades and gold stars, bonuses and promotions? I see so many people measuring success (both their children’s and their own) on the above sort of criteria. They’re so proud of those report cards, so proud of those awards.

I don’t know about you, but I want more than that. I want something that means something. And to be totally honest, when people gush with pride about their child’s grades, while I will smile and nod and make appropriate congratulatory remarks… inside, my true knee-jerk response is something akin to “So what?” To say that I’m remarkably unimpressed with things like grades is a gross understatement. They just don’t matter to me, and my list of objections to their very presence is lengthy.

But I’ll pretend, for the sake of argument, that I do care, that I do think that things like grades are a good measure of success. And I’ll take it a step further, and say that the fancy college is a good measure of success too, as well as the high-paying job and the big sprawling house. This is how society measures success, and for one (highly uncomfortable) moment, I’ll go along with society. Good grades, fancy colleges, high paying jobs = success. Fine.

But there’s still a problem. Even if all those things do truly measure success (and I’m still saying that they do) …

They still don’t measure character
They still don’t measure joy
They still don’t measure love
They still don’t measure peace
They still don’t measure kindness
They still don’t measure compassion
They still don’t measure gentleness

These are the things that make me proud of my kids.

The rest of it… the grades, the schools, the jobs, the achievements… it’s all just extra “stuff.” Strip all of that away, and underneath we are all people. I’m not nearly as interested in hearing about your pride for your kids in terms of their labels – your son the scholar, your daughter the athlete – as I am in hearing about your child the PERSON.

What happens when a parent decides ahead of time what it is that’s going to make them proud… whether it’s scholastic achievement, sports, the arts, a future career… and the child takes an entirely different path? What happens when that parent has two or more children, and one meets their expectations and the others don’t? I have seen firsthand what it does to a child to grow up with his or her parents subtly and not-so-subtly disappointed in them, not as satisfied with them, not as proud of them as their siblings. I told myself a long time ago that if I were ever blessed with children that I would not be that parent… that I would let MY KIDS show me who they are, and let MY KIDS teach me what they can be, and do; and let MY KIDS be the ones to unfold all the different aspects of themselves that make me proud.

And I am proud, of all four of them… in many different ways, but also in some fundamentally similar ways. I’m proud of who they are as people, and you just can’t measure that with a grade or a test or a job offer.

The older I get the more that I ask myself, “Will this matter at the end of my life?” Is your grave stone going to be engraved with your SAT scores, or your stock portfolio, or the fact that you made six figures at a thankless job?

No, it’s not. It’s going to say that you were very loved. The rest of that stuff? It just doesn’t matter.

This quote (often attributed to Emerson) sums it up best:

To laugh often and much;
to win the respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children;
to earn the appreciation of honest critics
and endure the betrayal of false friends;
to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others;
to leave the world a bit better,
whether by a healthy child,
a garden patch
or a redeemed social condition;
to know even one life has breathed easier
because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.

My kids are succeeding. And for that, I am proud.

8 Comments

Filed under attachment parenting, parenting, passions, perspective, unschooling

January 22, 2011 · 7:42 PM

Wisdom from the box

We have a big box of …. stuff … in one of our lower kitchen cabinets. It’s really a glorified “junk drawer,” and is filled with an odd assortment of old mail, documents, manuals, drawings, the occasional sticker and bandaid, medical records, greeting cards. It’s a potpourri really. It’s a big joke in our house when one of us is looking for something, and says, “Have you seen the (whatever it is)”, and the other one of us will reply. “I don’t know. Check the box.”

Good times.

Today, Mike was apparently struck with a sudden burst of inspiration, and decided to clean out the box. This is what was left when he was done (and had cut its contents by at least 2/3):

There’s some Spiderman wrapping paper in there, and the long lost directions to one of Paxton’s games, and the rope that we bought (probably two years ago) to put up as a clothes line. He made a huge stack of stuff to recycle, another to file in a more appropriate place, and a third for me to look through. I still haven’t gotten to my own pile yet, but I did rescue something cool from the stack for the recycle bin… It was something I’d liked and printed from the internet awhile ago, and it just spoke so brilliantly to what I was saying in my post about following your passion. I don’t know who wrote it, so I can’t credit it, but it is sage advice indeed:

“Vocations which we wanted to pursue, but didn’t, bleed, like colors, on the whole of our existence”. Honore De Balzac said that, and he was right. Do not let one more day go by without honoring the vocation your soul calls you to pursue. And don’t pretend you don’t know what it is. Of course you do. You can feel it in your stomach whenever you think about it; whenever you see another person doing it.

Life is so very short. Do now what you yearn to do in your life. You do not have to “quit your day job” in order to do this. You may do so if you choose to, but you do not have to. Many people advance a vocation while holding down their “regular job”. You can, too. Then ease into your vocation and turn it into your “regular job”.

But you must give energy to your vocation starting today. I mean, today.

What Are You Passionate About?

Last week, a friend and I were having some drinks at a Mexican restaurant. We were seated outside – just a few feet from the host – and were chatting, like we usually do, about kids and education, learning and unschooling. Shortly before we left, the host (a kid I’m guessing in his early twenties) turned to us and asked,

“Are you two teachers?” Then he laughed a little and said, “Not that I was eavesdropping.”

We told him what we were: moms who are just really passionate about our kids, and about alternative forms of education. We introduced him to unschooling when he showed an interest, and told him a little bit about ourselves and our kids. When I mentioned that I wrote, this already animated guy’s face completely lit up.

“I’m a writer!” He told us how much he loved writing, and how he’s written plays and poems, books and short stories. He was beaming.

As the conversation progressed, it gradually wove itself back around to the subject of school. When it did, this kid’s whole demeanor changed with it. His shoulders slumped, his tone softened, and he visibly just… deflated… when he said, “I go back to school next week. Twelve. Hours. A. Day. All science.”

I was actually rendered a little speechless by the fact that he was going to school for something in a science related field, when he clearly had such a passion for the arts. Thankfully, my friend still had control of her voice, because she asked all the questions that were on my tongue. He was a biology major. He was studying to become a nurse.

He said he loved it. Only….

his FACE didn’t say he loved it. His face had said he loved writing. And when she asked him about it again, he dismissed it out-of-hand.

“Oh, writing’s just my hobby.”

I live in the real world – most of the time – and I know that marrying dreams with necessity can be a complicated thing. I know that people have all kinds of reasons for choosing the fields that they choose, and I know that a five minute conversation with a stranger does not make me an expert on his vocational desires. Maybe he is just as passionate about nursing as he is about writing. Maybe I read him wrong.

I hope I was wrong.

And I hope that my own kids do the thing that they’re passionate about, the thing that makes their eyes light up, the thing that they know, deep down, that they were created to do.

College is great if it’s used to further an interest or lay a foundation for an inspired career. But is it necessary for greatness? Necessary for success?

No!

And I’ll put myself out there and say that in a huge percentage of cases, it turns into nothing more than a hugely expensive waste of time and money, especially if you don’t yet know what you want to be “when you grow up.” Will college tell you? What on earth is to be gained from a college experience that you couldn’t get ten times over by traveling, by taking advantage of your public (and free!) library, by researching how to start your own business, by exploring what it is you’re truly passionate about?

I don’t care if my kids make tons of money. I don’t care if they go to college, or earn lots of titles after their names, or work in a corner office with a view. What I care about is their happiness. What I care about is whether or not they are following their own passions.

If you’re following someone else’s path, someone else’s idea of achievement, how successful can you ever really be? Giving up your own sense of self for the high paying job or the white picket fence is not success.

When I talk to my kids about their future, and about jobs, I am ever thankful for the people in their lives who are clearly doing what they love to do…people from all walks who are doing all different kinds of things; people who are living, breathing, inspiring examples of following your passion:

The friend who took a huge pay cut to follow his dream of becoming a cop, who didn’t give up during the years that he struggled with only being able to find part-time work, and who is now a full-time bona fide police officer.

The cousin who loves music so much that he found a way to make it a career, and works as a sound technician for a big theater downtown.

The uncle who works out of his house as a computer programmer, often in his pajamas, and who loves what he’s doing so much that there is almost no distinction between his computer work and his computer play.

The friend who became a video game designer, who worked his way up from company to company, and who was a lead designer on some hugely well-known and well-liked games.

And the list goes on.

When people ask about why I homeschool, this answer is always there, always on the forefront. I want my kids to be able to follow their passions. Not that it’s not possible when you’re in school…But how much easier it is when you’re given freedom, when you’re not tempted to let yourself be herded into the masses, be talked into following someone else’s plan, be persuaded to take someone else’s path. Maybe the person who loves math isn’t meant to be an accountant, but a forest ranger. Maybe the person who loves to write isn’t meant to be a journalist, but something else entirely. Maybe when we’re young and impressionable, it’s all too confusing, and maybe well-meaning adults and schools just muddy the issue. Maybe we need to get the heck out of the way, and let the kids be.

I’ve spent way too much time wondering where I’d be today if I hadn’t gone to school, if I hadn’t spent twelve years being told to put my pen and notebook away and pay attention. To stop writing, and doodling, and dreaming, and do what I was supposed to be doing. I can’t do anything to change my own past, but what I can do is to live my life in such a way that my kids can learn from it.

I can trust my own passions, and follow them. I can live authentically and joyfully, and in the manner that I was individually created. I can show them that life’s not about having a certain amount of money, or a certain kind of job, or a certain kind of house. It’s about being who you are.

It’s about finding what you love to do, what you were meant to do…

and doing it.

5 Comments

Filed under passions, unschooling

November 20, 2010 · 8:07 PM

Because I Must

There’s a scene that I keep thinking of in the movie Blast From the Past. Blast From the Blast was a very mediocre popcorn movie from 1999, which I watched when I was going through a phase of having to watch every movie Brendan Fraser ever made. It was cute but ridiculous, and it wasn’t exactly a cinematic masterpiece. He IS a good actor, but you have to watch Gods and Monsters, School Ties, or With Honors to see it. But I digress.

In the movie, Brendan Fraser is born, and grows up in, a nuclear fall-out shelter, cut off from the rest of civilization until he’s 35. There’s a scene where his father is trying to explain baseball to him, and his character doesn’t understand why the person up to bat runs to first base after he hits the ball. He keeps asking why, and his father keeps saying, “Because he must!” Later in the movie, after he’s joined the rest of the world and is able to see a live baseball game for the first time, it clicks. He finally gets it, and he excited yells out, “Oh! Because he Must!”

That is how I feel about writing. I write because I must. It’s not even something that I chose for myself. It chose me. For better or worse, there has always been something intrinsic in me that needs to create things out of words.

This is November, which means that I’ve been working on a novel for NaNoWriMo for the past three weeks. Which also means that the past 20 days have been exhausting. Fall on the floor, body aching, weary-boned exhausting. I have four kids to take care of, a Mike, a house, and 12 pets. I don’t have extra time time to write a novel in 30 days, so I have to make the extra time. And I do it simply because I must. I don’t always want to, but I have to.

One of the greatest things about homeschooling, and unschooling in particular, is that my kids have the opportunity to follow their passions right now. They don’t have to squeeze them in in between school and homework and activities. By design, their lives allow them to do whatever it is that they’re passionate about, whatever it is that they must do, almost anytime that inspiration strikes. I remember sitting in school as a kid, hiding behind my book, jotting down an idea for a short story, or a few lines of a poem, or at one point even song lyrics. I remember the frustration of having to sneak it, and the desperation of the time constraint, of trying to get it down I paper before 1) I got reprimanded, or 2) I had to go to my next class. I remember carrying ideas around for days, never getting the chance to translate them onto a page. I am so thankful that I have the opportunity to create something different for my kids, to be able to allow them the freedom to not only find what it is that they’re passionate about, but to follow it. Right now.

An interesting thing that I’ve begun to notice is that the more I support them in their endeavors, the more they support me in mine. A few days ago, when I was discouraged, plagued with writer’s block, and frustrated by my out-of-control house it was Spencer who said, “Don’t quit. Finish your book….” Not because he particularly cares one way or the other whether or not I finish it, but because he knows it’s important to ME. He knows I need to do it. As a mom, it’s always a delicate balancing act to make time for your own pursuits while still putting the kids’ needs first. And they do still come first, no question about it. Which is why a one month writing spree is perfect for our family… For just thirty days I stay up too late, drink too much coffee, and enter the hazycrazywonderful fog that comes with being immersed in my own little made up world, populated by my own little made up characters.

And then November ends. I’ve fulfilled that need, we all celebrate, and then we move on to December. If November is about writing, which is in effect about me, December is the exact opposite. December is not about me. December is about the kids. December is about giving. December is about hanging the advent calendar with the 25 different activities leading up to Christmas. December is about creating wonderful memories as a family, and December is about celebrating the birth of Christ.

Every bit as vital as the part of me that was meant to write a novel this month, is the part of me that was meant to create a magical holiday experience next month. I look forward to December so much.

So in ten days, I will (God-willing) have the 50,000 words I need to happily put my novel to rest, set it aside until after the new year, and focus 100% of my undivided attention on the kids, on Christmas, and on celebrating.

Because I must.

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