grownup homeschooler: creating a life worth living

 

I've always wanted to "work."  To pursue my interests fully, to build community, to run businesses & have a little store.  To be a painter, an actor, an activist, a chef, a workshop facilitator.  I'm the quintessential grown-up unschooler.  I've done a lot of these things, some better than others, all of it I've loved, & I've never had to choose.  

Until now.  

Mother?  Business owner?  Home Teacher?  Illustrator?  Activist?  Wife?  Priestess?  Domestic Creatrice?  There really, really isn't time to do it all.  Not today, at least.  So I'm choosing to sequence.

Homeschooling gave me the time & space to figure out what I loved.  Trust from my parents gave me the belief I could make things happen.  By living in the real world, with intergenerational, mixed-demographic friends, I've been able to choose a life without the pressures of a false set of peers.  I haven't picked up so many of the disempowering ideas that many of my college friends had (& still have) about what I can & can't do.  

My school has been the world, & if there's 89 year-olds quietly sewing knots in fabric & dipping them into indigo all day, then I can, too.  If there's someone starting a soy dulce-de-leche ice cream factory in Miami, well, I can, too.  If Kimmie's living his entire life in service while having the impact of hundreds instead of one, well, maybe I can, too.

So I choose...all of it.

Call me crazy.  But that's what being an unschooler is all about. 

With kids in tow, I'm making a 20 year-game.  Starting in 2029 & going backwards, I'm going to pencil it all in.  The trips I'm taking.  The organizations I'm supporting.  The crafts I'm making.  The projects, initiatives, the books I'll read & write, the workshops I'll take & give.  

I expect this list to change.  Sometimes we're asked to look back at our upbringing.  Depending on when we're asked, doesn't the story change?  Don't we forget details & then remember little facts?  Don't we gain new insights, then it's almost a new story?  Every once in a while my brothers will tell me something & I get a whole new context for why things went the way they did.  Or I realize that things didn't go the way I had thought.  The past usually gives us who we are.

Does anyone want to join me in creating an inspiring future that will give us who we are?

 It's not a list of goals.  I'm going to write out my future & let that be the story that gives me my life.  I'm just going to make it up!! Something fun that I will take seriously ~ at least the part about being inspired.  And anything that doesn't inspire me will just be taken off the list.  Whoosh!!  

In real life we make things up all the time, pretending that things are happening to us, as though we are spectators in our lives.  There's plenty of circumstances in my life that aren't what I'd design, but they're in the past & the present.  The future's a clean slate.  

It's time for creating a life worth living.  It's time for a little grown-up unschooling.

A few things I'm adding to my "20 year backwards calendar:"

2029  My grandparents' birthdays & anniversaries.  For celebrating.

2016 A multi-city family band tour with my boys & husband.  (We don't play anything now)

2015 A family reunion. 

2013  A trip around the world with all five of us.

2013 Vegan food in Japan at a Zen Buddhist Temple.

2012 "American Filipino Holidays," book launch w/ my mom.

2010  Marry my husband again just for kicks.

2009 Meeting my nephew in the Philippines.

Anyone want to play?

Comments

[Hannah]

Oh, I definitely want to play!

[resty]

okay. 2029: sail my handmade boat in the mediterranean. 2028: backpack through new zealand 2027: write poetry in a cottage in provence 2026: a year at le cordon bleu 2025: thai cooking classes & island hopping 2024: marketing in north africa for fabric 2023: paint lighthouses in new england 2022: search for avalon 2021: photograph wild penguins 2020: rent out villavelekula & wear pippi braids 2019: learn artisan pastry making 2018: taste-test every pizza in naples 2017: make boullabaise in marseille 2016: deep sea fishing 2015: collect dishes in scandanavia 2014: balinese tree house, export some furniture 2013: heliskiing 2012: cross-country canadian tour 2011: get married 2010: fall in love with a traveler. whew!!!

[Kathie]

I'm gonna play! I'll be working on it this weekend. What a great idea.

[Anne]

This is a great idea and inspiring. I need time to think...

[willow]

I popped over here from Two Frog Home. Having been a homeschool mom, I enjoyed knowing you, too, are the product of the homeschool movement.

I'd have to think about this: I've already done a lot. I do know I'm going to travel and travel!

[sk]

Fantastic post! I recently discovered your blog, i think through a link on Marvelous Kiddo, and I am so intrigued! I want to do this...I love how open your mind is! I long for that. I've been feeling so stuck lately....thanks for the inspiration!