I am richly blessed in my life with many good and true friends. I am so grateful for their support and love. These past few days have been interesting. I expected to be feeling in mourning for our loss for a much longer period, and while I don't believe I am totally done, I have been surprisingly joyful and overall happy the past few days. I know I have been buoyed up by the prayers of those who care for us.
I am so glad to have many people that I know are good friends in my life, including some who get to be related to me. I have a newer friend in my life whom doesn't feel that way. She feels she has been floating thru life, with friends here and there, but not a single one has been around for any long period of time. No friends from her childhood still adorn her Christmas list.
Friendships are a fascinating thing, and I am not a beautiful writer who can expound beautifully on all the parts of friendships and what they provide us with. But I do know that I try to cherish my friends. I don't always succeed as well as I wish, and I hope they forgive me when I am not verbally grateful enough or when I break one of the many etiquette rules that I am always learning.
One thing about friends, is that their physical presence is not easily replaced by a computer or phone. And most of my dear friends are not here with me in my new home state. I hope to find a bosom buddy here, (or multiples!) and have some good candidates that I believe I can call good friends at this point. I don't know how long it takes or what essential ingredient is necessary to make a friend into a bosom buddy, the type of friend you can tell anything to and discuss anything. Because I am blessed with friends and can think of 5 people I can call on the phone and tell anything to and discuss anything with, I wonder if I have reached my limit of real bosom buddy best friends for this life. How much I miss them! How much I crave such an individual now!
Perhaps the thing I crave is a bosom buddy who unschools. Because friends meet different parts of who we are. Is that what it is? My dear bosom buddies I have now are supportive of me in what I am doing, though they are personally not following the same paths.
I think that there is a voice inside of me that laughs snarkily at the changes I've made in my home and family - changes that have made our home a happier, more joyful place - changes that I love - I think that the voice is waiting for me to fail. Waiting for me to give up and revert to what is "normal" and be part of the mainstream again. And I am afraid of that voice. Very afraid. I am continually reading and studying and improving our unschooling home and my own parenting and everything, but that voice...it keeps telling me I will fail, that I will quit, like a thousand other interests that have waxed and waned thru my life. I hate that voice. Where is the new unschooly bosom buddy friend that will somehow help me conquer it?
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4 comments:
Are you in my head because I hear that voice, too. Geez, last night I even dragged out a textbook and planned to look at it with my oldest today....
It's so weird that I came across this post when I did because I was sitting here thinking about how blessed I feel to have the network of friends that I do on the internet and how wonderful it would be if we were all closer...Isn't that weird?!
You're not alone in wishing you had a close unschooling com padre! NC's nice, wanna move here? :)
Funny, when I started studying unschooling a couple of years ago, I sort of felt justified - or more normal - for my waxing and waning interests.
I thought, "Oh, maybe its okay to soak something up as fast as I can with everything that I am, and then have a period of rest, disinterest, or even move on to something else."
Before that I just thought I was flighty or crazy - inconsistent.
I guess I sort of found comfort in it for myself, too - learning how to accept my own interests as well as my children's.
I can certainly appreciate wanting to be around unschooler's, though!
Thank goodness I have more than my share of those! (and Beloved, they are.)
Steph
I know I'm writing this in the wrong spot, but I wasn't sure if you'd look at your comments down the page. I understand what you've gone through with you miscarriages. I've had 6. I experienced 2 before Carter 2 after Carter and 2 after Ethan. My last Dr. said that he guessed that I was just unlucky. That didn't go over too well. You can't fix unlucky. My last miscarriage was the hardest. We'd tried for a year to get pregnant and I had gone 10 weeks only to find out at my first Dr. appt. that there was no heart beat. I know I've taken up to much space but I want you to know that you are not alone!
It can be tough to find someone you really connect with, even in a group of people with similar interests. I'm right there with ya on needing a local friend that is sincere. It seems to me many people who claim to be understanding and accepting (which I thought were all unschoolers) have proven to be the most judgmental. Friends & etiquette, well, I thought your friends were suppose to love and support one another regardless of trivial behavioral differences. Anyway, take heart, local friends are near. ;)
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