Goodbye

I feel really sad that I won't be homeschooling next year...or ever again, really.  Wow!  The great vast horizon of the years to come stretch out before me, open, empty.  I feel so reflective and contemplative.  The deep sadness comes to me and fills me because I LOVED it so much!  It was beautiful and meaningful and challenging.  Homeschooling blessed me deeply, down in my marrow.  

An email arrives in my inbox, advertising a sale at CBD on homeschooling supplies.  I walk through Sam's Club or Target and think of school supplies that I might need for the year to come, then catch myself.  That is no longer who I am.  But I liked being her.  And I will miss her.

I am thankful for the minutes and hours I got to spend with my wonderful children.  The seconds I was able to pour into their lives and their hearts.  I am thankful that I was given the opportunity to really know them.  They are amazing, unbelievable, interesting, joyful, funny.  Many public schooling parents would disagree and argue, I'm sure, but I am certain that I would not have truly known my children if I hadn't spent so much time with them.  For that I am full of gratitude.  I know them...and they like me.

I will miss the laughter.  I know they will still be here and be around but I will miss all the moments "in between".  It was all of the "in between" moments that delivered deep questions, and giggle fits and discussions of life.  

Time keeps moving forward.  And it is good.

I am excited for the opportunities that this new school will bring.  I am excited for my kids to go out and embark on the adventure of their lives.  But I am also aware of the passing of a moment in time.  Like the passing of babies to toddlers, and toddlers to school age children.  This is a chunk of my life and their life that is passing away, into the past.  It is becoming our history, a part of our foundation.  When I gaze into the future it is no longer there.  Though I search for it, it will not be found.  Ahead in the steps that I take I will never step again into a homeschool convention, or walk through Staples in the same way again.

Momentous.  Ginormous in scope.  Deeper than I can express.  There passes an enormous chapter of life.

A great and large chapter.

Goodbye Homeschooling.  I loved you well and tried my best and trusted God to fill the empty spaces. 

He will fill the empty horizon ahead.