Giving up my Work.

It’s December 4^th and I just decided to not prioritize my novel, my work, for the entire month of December, as there is always so much tension and never enough time this time of year. The decision was troubling to me…especially since I also recently decided play hooky from my writing group in December. If I am working so hard on self-care and love then why was I so willing to sacrifice my work? Why are Ramona’s performances, her birthday party, holiday festivities more important? Isn’t this self depreciation?

No.

December is a time for me to withdraw into care for home, family, friends, but also for self. The hearth. It is the time to get the house together, to renew, to re coup. To pack up the old useless stuff and send it off.

Our work – who we are in the world and the mark we leave-, if we tap into our innermost selves, is our true voice. But nothing can always be on; eternal growth is capitalist myth. The voice needs rest. Minds need to digest. Ideas need to percolate. Our private lives need to be honored. Even machines wear out if you leave them on all the time.

In December I get my house in order. I honor home and care. I read the books that have being piling up in my “to read” stack. I purge and clean my house to ready it for our guests/friends and to make space for the new year. I focus my attention on giving and decorating for friends and holidays. I hold no expectations nor cling to outcomes. I make sure my daughter knows how important she is and I prioritize her winter performances; the costumes, rehearsals, the tickets, transportation; you know, things that the world doesn’t really think matters. Withdrawing is part of the cycles life. It moves us into the future. It is ending a cycle and preparing for the next. Its looking in and taking care. 

I used to complain about Ramona’s birthday being in December, but now I see the blessing. It has changed me. It has shown me how to submit to the cycles, and a whole, rich life. A plant can not always be in bloom, lest it wither and die.

In January it will be 2017. A new year.

Personal/Political

I was sitting on my porch with a dear friend of mine the night of the election. We were just realizing that Hillary might not win, something we had both taken for granted.  We were pretty bummed about Clinton as our next president, but could that many people actually have voted for Trump? He was really bad!  “I feel like were are kids.” I said to her.  “And Trump and Hillary are…our abusive parents.” She started laughing hysterically. Not at me, but with me. Not like haha, hilarious, but haha frighteningly hilarious and a little bit true.

Just a few days before the election, I was visiting my dad. He’s a Trump supporter, not because he agrees with the worst of Trump’s bigoted rhetoric, but because he likes what Trump represents to the establishment. He’s the disciplinarian and the businessman. The patriarch.

Our government really does need some discipline. The Left just points to the corruption on the right, the right points to the corruption on the left, but neither has a problem turning a blind eye to the corruption among their own ranks. Everyone believes they’re the good guys and those others are the bad guys, but we fail to realize that that dichotomy only exists because we make it that way. “But they’re worse that we are!” Shut up.   

My father abused me. He shut me down. He silenced me. I could not say a word against his without being put in my “place.” My father identifies with patriarchy. My father values money and power. He values hierarchal relations as defined by the bible.  His job was to hold the power, to discipline, make sure I accepted the hierarchical formation of my family, the world and the heavens.

A few days before the election, I was speaking to my therapist about my trip to my dad’s, including some quietly vindictive things I did against him, just little things, but things I knew would upset him.  I was acting out, still struggling with his abuse and lack of love and kindness. I have recently begun the hard work it will take to reclaim my voice that was snuffed out by my father and also to learn to not need or want him in my life.  

Trump is the embodiment of my abusive father and his values, the negative side of the Patriarch archetype. It’s like there’s this sort of double struggle going on, inner and outer, with the abusive patriarch. My personal struggle is merged with the public/political struggle.

I was checking in with another friend yesterday. And I started telling her about how I have my proverbial boxing gloves on and am ready to take this patriarchy on...and how Trump is the embodiment of my abusive father. She told me she felt exactly the same, how he embodied her abusers from when she was a child and how this election was super triggering, a sort of re-traumatization, for her.

Is this what all these people, those who have been abused and oppressed, people who have little social and political power, are going through? Is he the Face of Abuse? Is that why so many are falling apart? Well, I think it is, at least a little.

Our human condition seems to require that we hit rock bottom before we change. When it hurts more to stay the same than it does to change, that is when we are able to muster the energy it takes to do that work. I am not sure how far our bottom is, but maybe, just maybe, this is it? I hope so.    

As for our abusive mom, Hillary? That’s another story. But in a nutshell, Trump is our abusive dad, Hillary was supposed to protect us but she just made us more confused. And us minions are their wily teenagers who have had enough of dad’s shit and we are disgusted and disappointed at mom for being complicit and not protecting us. Or something like that.

Making It Up As We Go Along Revisted and Recommitted.

NOTE: 11/15/16 I actually didn't blog every week. I am never going to make that sort of statement about my work again.

Today I embark on this blog, for real this time.  In fact, right now I am deciding to make it my New Yea resolution, since I don’t have one yet, and Thursday is New Year’s Eve.   Here goes: In 2016 I will write a blog post at least every week. I am a writer after all. You should subscribe. It will inspire me to write more.

Originally this blog was something like “Homeschooling Single.” But then I realized my relationship status and my feelings towards schooling are merely symptoms of who I am… “homeschooling single” doesn’t really describe anything about me. Nothing really does (except maybe weird and awkward). That’s always been my problem – or my super-power depending on how you look at it.  The funny thing about labels is that as soon as we assume them, we tend to start identifying with them. I used to unschool my daughter, but that became to limiting.  But that’s me, a single parent who can’t seem to wrap her head around the culture she lives in. Really. Sometimes its funny and quaint, sometimes its painful. We all feel alienated and different, but some of us really are. Like me. My therapist even says so.   

On the other hand maybe "single" actually does describe me.

---

On Wednesday, my daughter and I are head to Costa Rica, to see my daughter’s dad, and her paternal family. We have been several times, but this time is weirder.  I mean last time they were all like, “Why are you going?’  and “Why doesn’t you stay for several months, or years…” Then, because I am a poor single mom and because Costa Ricans are generally poor and don’t travel, its been two years since we have been able to connect, and no one really sounds very happy we are coming. No one is coming to meet us at the airport.  No one is like, “Hey, come over and stay with us!” Ramona’s father keeps writing to me asking me if I am sure I don’t want to be his woman in a way that tells me that if I am not I might not be as welcome as I have been in the past. That’s another weirdness factor in this visit…and sordid past between her dad and I that really belongs on a telenovela.  I am trying to change that, bound and determined to stay strong.  

And that is it. Wednesday morning, at 6am we catch our flight. My house is still a mess. I don’t know where we will be staying or where we will be going, or how we will be received, or how long it will take me to pay back for this trip... but we are going on an adventure.  In a way I am looking forward to it. Wondering if a month will be long enough. What do you think?

Starting Again

I decided just now to start blogging again... just now. I decided to analyze my writing to see what famous writing I am like, from some app on Facebook. Of course I wanted to be sure, so I ran a lot of my writing through and I got a lot of different writers, but almost half of them were Cory Woderow or something like that. The time we find to waste on things these days. How many days have been wasted? Anyhow, it was that silly Facebook game that brought me back here. And I have decided once again to write from the heart and not worry about my ego and my public persona.

I've become tired of my life, so I am working on changing it. Without ruining my daughter's life. It actually a really big feat. Can one person give two people good lives and still be together as much as we want.

Ramona is happy. The trick is that both of us are. I am reaching out for change, grasping for it. I am looking for ways to engage in my career, find somewhere to grow. Ive been applying for jobs, which is just nerve-wracking and depressing... I have been contemplating starting training in a martial art... I went to an Aikido Dojo, but I am still contemplating until I know.

I've done this before. You put in the work, you put out your feelers, and eventually the right path opens up.

I have also invited Ramona's father here. I am not sure I could ever imagine it working out, but if I don't try I will regret it. If I do I might regret it too, but I am getting older, I want a rich life. I want to live big. It is so much better to regret something you've done than to regret something you haven't done. When you regret something you didn't do, it always haunts you. What if? If I regret something I have done, I just think...well at least I tried. And I am willing to put in the work. And I love Ramona's dad. And we want to be together, but we don't have the money. Believe it or not, it is really hard to visit here from anywhere in Latin America if you don't have a lot of money. So we are here, me without him...Ramona without him. Wondering...what if he forgets us. What if the time and the work it takes to be together again is just too much and we drift away before it is ever able to come to pass. I want to be a family unit. I want the father of my child with me. I've been alone so long.

Control

Unschooling is my main approach to homeschooling.  Sometimes its hard to give up that kind of control.  Unschooling requires that I have faith that my daughter will learn what she needs to, with out coercion.  Societal hang-ups tell me I need to "develop" her academic talents.  Like the West tries to develop the "under-developed" of the world into its own image.

R has taken on the academic with ease and always been "ahead" of in the race (that leads to the rat race); it seems I have set the bar at that level, always ahead.  The fear of average has set in.  I don't want to be average. I was an "advanced" child, I really had a lot of potential. Now I am just average. That's the mantra that plays in my head.  And I blame my parents.

Homeschooling shines a bright light on the structure and state of the relationship between a parent and child. And also how that relationship is intrinsically intertwined with the parent and the parents' parents; the whole ancestry and family history of rearing children.  Homeschooling has been demanding but rife with opportunities to grow as a person and give up pride, control, the need to be right, and the need to know how things will be. It presents the opportunity to embrace humility, self-discipline, right speech, trust, and hope. Because I am in contact with my child so much more I can't hide from our relationship. There is a real depth of work here. Choosing to interact mindfully with your child is a discipline. It's work. And it's rewarding. And then I will get it wrong and I try to shrug it off and try again with a sincere and open heart.  I just hope I start getting it right more often.

But yesterday was really hard. It feels like we don't like any of the same things. We are marching to different tunes these days. We have had a couple break-downs the last couple weeks due to her not wanting to do what we are doing.  So I try so hard to find something that works.  And I think it does...for a minute....then she balks and all falls apart. Or I fall apart.  Unfortunately I have had to work the last two nights, in the middle of the night.  I'm not rested.  Maybe her life is boring.

I called the Montessori charter school. I made an appointment to attend an information meeting. The next step would be a tour.  I asked if I could bring my daughter to the tour, and they said children do not attend the tour. Could I really take her education so far out of her hands that she wouldn't even be able to tour the school where she would potentially be spending the next 8 years?

I swallow my  pride and start anew.  I try something different. I tell her that I won't make her do anything, but that I need her to follow through. She says she will.  Will she be able to do that?

I remember when she was 2, and 3 and 4 and all I expected of her was that she be herself and I loved that self so much. She learned so well then, she never ceased to amaze people with her maturity and great personality.   Then I got tired, she felt pressure.  It started with this independent study school. Standards. Assignments. But I don't have a choice.  I need the support.

Today I feel I have it more together.  I am going to go to that informational meeting.  Maybe even the tour. Maybe it will instill in me once and for all that full-time institutionalization is definitely 100% wrong for her. Maybe it won't... Just for today we are homeschooling. I love our time together.