The Floating Expat

posted by Megan Wadsworth on Jul 14

Life’s greatest decisions come out of those blissful moments of complete silence. For me, the voice is never booming, just clear and strong. If I don’t have the silence required I will miss it. I will go to great lengths to find this silence. Without it I don’t know how to live. If the world gets too loud and I can’t hear my inner voice, I will retreat. Although socially awkward at times, it’s never failed me. Some call it God, some Allah, Jesus, The Holy Spirit, The Universe, Inner Voice, etc. For me it’s not important what it’s called as long as I seek it. Although, I have been partial to the word Universe for some time now. The decision to Home Educate The Monkey came out of one of those profound moments. As did the next decision to pull The Moon out of school. She has been home with us for about 3 months now. The freedom that has come from these life changing decisions has been enormous. I had even been wondering if we would bother putting our youngest in school come September, when he is due to start. I was starting to think this would be how things would progress from here on out. I was a homeschooler now. But, as the old saying goes… life is what happens when making other plans. Turns out, The Monkey had other ideas. He was thoughtful and considered when he came to me and told me that he wanted to go to middle school in the Fall. He has enjoyed being at home but he is ready to go back now. What??!! No! I know this is what we had originally planned back when I first pulled him from his lower school but I was hoping for longer. It’s just gone sooooo well. I’m not ready. He can’t do this to me! Except of course, I was missing the point. This isn’t about me. I started to feel panic as we had pulled The Moon from school now as well. I was committed Damnit. We bought curriculums! We have made friends! So I did what I always do in these moments. Yoga. A bit of quiet. By the end of the day my husband and I agreed that The Monkey should go back to school if that’s what he wanted. In making this decision, we also decided that The Bear would start as planned in September. We went back to our original thinking that the Foundation year is great fun. The Monkey and The Moon absolutely loved it and we want The Bear to have the same experience. The only difference will be, we have decided not to put him in the same school his siblings went to. We are lucky in that there are two lower schools in our small town so we choose the other one. We need a fresh start. Going backwards felt like the wrong thing to do. We are undecided about The Moon at the moment. And that’s ok with me. If you don’t know what to do, do nothing. So nothing it is. For now. If a space comes available to us at the same lower school that The Bear will attend then we will see where we are. In many ways I do feel, either all in or all out. It’s difficult when they are on such different leaning paths. Switching back and forth between child-led learning to the, toe the line, National Curriculum is brain splitting. But again it’s not up to me in the end. I’m going with the flow here. The wonderful thing so far is that it is all working out. Just not in the way I thought. The Monkey has built up his confidence and developed a strong sense of self and what his interests are AND he’s learned his times tables. This is just a bonus as far as I’m concerned. The emotional side was key. By pulling The Moon a few months later, we have given ourselves a clean slate. If she were still in school we would be attached to a school that we’ve fallen out of love with. We are now free to make new decisions. Paul and I are getting good at these now. We have made quite a team over the last few months. My husband and I are very different and there are times when that has caused us great marital annoyance. We are both stupid and smart in completely different areas. We have wasted time in the past putting the focus on the differences, looking for all the things we had in common instead of enjoying the differences, which is what we loved about one another to begin with. I think we have now come to our senses. Our differences have brought us far this year. We have closed ranks as a family and done a lot of soul searching. My spontaneous bursts of spiritual intuition would have never worked without Paul’s thoughtful and practical responses. Over the years he has learned that my intuition rarely leads us astray and I have learned that there are always practical matters to take into consideration. He makes me think before I jump and I make him jump. Together, not only have we made the decision to Home Educate but we have made decisions on how we have gone about it. Equally, together we are making decisions to put, at least some of them, back in school. We have made quite a team and I’m very proud of us. But it’s not over yet. There are plenty of decisions still to be made. We will continue to listen to our children and what their needs are but ultimately I will be listening to the silence. It knows everything.