Patient Acceptance

A week had passed and I had not walked.  This morning I was almost desperate for some quality Just 10 time with myself.  My armor of optimism took a beating yesterday.  I spent the day in a funk.  Today, I had to walk.  My life felt like it depended on it.

These last few weeks of summer, I have been tried to fill my days with as many things as I can.  I will miss my children when we return to school.   What I really want is to homeschool them but I can't, at least not yet. My son dreads his return to school.  He is getting older and more aware that he isn't like other boys his age.  This last week, when we leave the house, he takes along his favorite stuffed toy.  He can't be convinced that ten-year old boys usually leave such things at home.  The friend, he played with last year will be in a different classroom.  He has told my son, that he will play with his old friends next year but not Andrew.  Of course, Andrew is a fine companion when this young man's family needs a quick babysitter, me.   My daughter surprised me this last week by saying she wants to be homeschooled.  My golden girl, the eternal optimist, the rule-follower, who makes friends easily, says she is bored.

I have to work.    My children are good children.   They need to have their hunger for knowledge awakened or at least renewed.  They need to discover for themselves how fascinatingly interesting the world is. They need to begin to believe how important an education is for them and for the future of the planet.  They need to learn how to think, to reason, to analyze, to question.  They need to learn how to find answers and how to live with the questions that are not easily answered.  But, I have to work.  What I want most, I can not have.  I must find a way to accept that fact, patiently, without bitterness.  I must look for alternatives, for ways to teach them what I feel they need to know in the time we do have together each day.  I need to patient accept that my husband is not committed to the task in the same way I am.  I can not make him into the teacher, I think he could be.  It's out of my control.

Yesterday, acceptance did not come easily.  Today, as I stepped off the miles, I also struggled with what to do about another situation that demands my attention.  I realized that I have an obligation to do what I can to help but that the help may be rejected.  I have to let go of the outcome.  I have to do everything I can but I have to accept what ever happens.  This is a skill which I have yet to master.   I have to learn how to be a diplomatic architect who passes the blueprints to another.

This summer has been as much about parenting myself as it has about parenting my children.  Sometimes the responsibility I feel is overwhelming.  I want to slip away from all the summer chores and be young again.  I want an endless summer.  It is not to be and as summer comes to a close, I grieve the loss. It's time to accept what is.