Quietness is Shit Scary
This week I forced myself to take some time to be quiet. I went to a nearby creek, leaned against an old bridge with the water rushing below, and allowed nature to envelope me. As soon as I closed my eyes, my emotions emerged and tears came spilling out. Dang it.
This is why I don’t like to slow down. When I slow down, I feel things. The fears that I run from somehow all catch up to me and I am overwhelmed and scared. Anybody else experience this?
This blog is hard for me to write. Partly because it’s a really sensitive subject for me and partly because I am right in the middle of the mess and I don’t have anything figured out. But it’s all I have at the moment and I have promised myself that I will only show up in full authenticity and vulnerability. So I take a deep breath and hope that within this keyboard I can find words to make sense of my scrambled heart.
Nate, Jennifer and I have been discussing what schooling to do for my girls in the upcoming 2023-2024 school year. Jaden will be graduating from high school this spring and hopes to get into a college that he finds suitable. Enrolling Jaden in public school for his last year has been good but not without challenges. He is glad though and felt like it was the right decision. Nate and I have been wondering if it would be a good choice for our girls or not. It was hard enough taking the leap to enroll my son in something I had absolutely no clue about but the thought of putting my girls in public school is 200 times more difficult for me to think about.
I have an immense amount of fears about it. Just typing right now makes me feel queasy and emotional. It seems so risky and horribly selfish. I want to protect my girls. I don’t want them to suffer anymore than they already have. I carry tremendous guilt for how much pain they have gone through because of my mistakes. I can’t stand the thought of putting them in a place with so much potential to hurt their precious hearts, minds and bodies.
To know love is to know pain. I know my kids will suffer a lot more in their lives and I won’t be able to do anything about it, but right now there are still some things I can do to protect them. However, I also cannot deny the fact that I do not WANT to home school my kids anymore. I feel horrible for even admitting this truth, but I am tired of trying to be what I think I “should be”. I am ready to be the actual “me” and trust that what is best for me will ultimately also be best for my kids.
Nate and Jennifer have been helping out with schooling the girls but I feel so fucking guilty. I feel like I have abandoned my post and I need to get my ass back to my “job”. I’ve grown up believing that being a home school, stay at home mom, was the most honorable job and the best that I could ever give my kids. My mom had 9 kids, stayed home, and schooled us until we joined the cult. At that point we were basically given over to be “schooled/trained” by the leader David Taylor. After this I basically lost all connection with my parents.
I am terrified of my children feeling abandoned by me. I want them to feel seen, valued and loved by me. I want them to feel safe and know how important they are to me.
It’s hard. It’s hard to sort out what are real concerns and what are fears coming from my trauma/abandonment issues. It’s gonna take me some time to work through. I have committed to digging in even though 75% of me wants to run and hide from it all. I don’t know what Nate, Jennifer and I will come to but what I do know is that we will eventually find the right decision for our family.
Peace will lead the way. It always does once I stop running and let the quietness unfold the hidden hurts. It’s through these hard decisions that life offers me a deeper understanding of myself and continued healing.
I don’t want to spend my life avoiding the pain but damn it’s painful to feel. If you are finding yourself working hard to stay “busy” so that the quietness doesn’t catch up to you, I get it. I understand. But maybe this year, this beautiful new year, you can be brave enough to stop for a minute. It’s okay if you cry. It’s okay if it’s overwhelming. It’s okay if you don’t have answers. It’s okay if it’s scary. Let yourself feel. No judgments, no pressure to figure it out. Just feel. It’s not going to fix everything but I promise you will feel better afterwards and the next step in your path will eventually open up.
I love you. Life is shit hard. Thank you for not quitting. Thank you for showing up today. Don’t forget to look in the mirror today and high five yourself. The person looking back at you is the most incredible person in the world.
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