The New Year gives me a chance to think about my life and how I might make it better. This year my life is a nearly bursting with the closeness of family. Not the extended family we always think of around the holidays, but the family that my husband and I forged together. Our family.
It is January and for our little homeschool that means rebooting our schooling activities after our long Christmas break. We don’t have a summer vacation and chose instead a long break from lessons at the end of the year since there are a lot of birthdays piled up with Thanksgiving and, of course, Christmas. So we celebrate and relax from Thanksgiving until the New Year. All that time off gives me the time to catch up on paperwork, make any adjustments we might need to our schedule or curriculum, and time to reflect on my abilities as the teacher of my children.
Every New Year I find myself overflowing with emotions. I am relieved that we will start lessons again, as the discipline of keeping my kids to a schedule provides the rails upon which I can keep my own activities organized. Without planned daily lessons, I tend to founder, become frustrated, and feel that I haven’t accomplished a great deal by the end of the day. I have a hard time focusing on our family as the source of my strength.
When my children were little, they were a constant joy. My husband and I guided and taught and played and watched them explore the world. Life was about exploration and guidance. My life then was busy and active, but the driving compass of my life was my children. I was reacting to their needs and did not have the time to develop my own. And it was a most wonderful blessing.
Now that my children are teens, our family changed dramatically. We are no longer two parents with children. Our family is now a group. Everyone contributes and everyone cares for each other. Our roots have twisted and grown together in a way that cannot be severed. Our choice of life, the homeschooling life, has prepared us to grow into a sort of family that I never expected possible.
My family is the source of my strength. All flows out of it: faith, hope, love, truth, and peace. Family.
