giving thanks: in sickness and in health

When I started this blog, in the wee hours of the morning almost two years ago, I thought it would be a homeschooling blog. Where I wrote about our journey—for me as a homeschooling mother, and for my kids as learners. I wanted to record our learning, and think about our methods. I wanted to focus on our love for learning, especially our creative learning and how important that was to our day.

Loving to learn was born. No fanfare, just a simple Plop, or perhaps a tiny Plink, and it was there.

I began to write. Very sporadically at first. More and more deeply as time passed.

I found myself writing not just about homeschool, but about parenting too. About choosing Yes in my parenting days over No.

I found myself

walking into Yes.

Into everything that meant. In our homeschool days,
in learning in general,
in our life.

Choosing Yes opened my eyes.

That choice became a turning over of the soil for me. It began a deep digging down and a deep unearthing.

It became clear that I wanted and needed to share more.

I began sharing myself, my own story.

My journey into and out of sadness, and how Choosing Yes was in fact a part of a bigger picture.

That of Finding Joy.

Seeking and finding joy, is for me,
the way I try daily to save my life. To lift and fill it.


This blog has become something Else.

In writing it, and in the passing of time, I have become something,

someone

Else.


I am

a grown up

a writer

and a mother,


but I am ALSO

and have become


a homeschooler

a learning 'facilitator'

a student—of art, crochet, cooking, maths, astronomy, physics, history, knitting, sewing, gardening and lego robots

a cook, a cleaner, a dog washer and the owner of two fairly challenging cats

a lap (available at any time)

a vegan

the mother to two bright young artists, writers, inventors, and musicians (who are an inspiration to me)

and the wife to one extraordinary, beautiful man.


I am also

officially,

someone suffering from clinical depression.

As of this moment. As of Right Now.


And

as of yesterday, after a visit to my doctor, and a long long talk,

I am also possibly, probably,

someone with bipolar disorder II.

I am someone who will have to get treatment. See a counsellor, see a psychiatrist, go to naturopaths and to doctors. Someone who must seek help. Someone who might have to go on medication for life.


Where does that fit? In this life of mine that is

so beautiful?

So full? So blessed?

How is it even possible?


And how does that fit here, into this blog?

Where and how do I write about that?

Really. Without people squirming and looking away?

How do I write and not think: This is too much. This might make people see me differently. That label is not for people like me, is it?

Is it?

It must be, if it is true. If it turns out to be part of who I am, then it is. As much as any of the things on my list of Me.



On this day, I am either moving into good-bye, because writing about this was never what this blog was meant to be about.

Or I am beginning a new journey here. Where I write about finding the joy, more and more. Where I show our day-to-day and our Good,

along with the Hard and the Healing.

I wonder which one it should be.

I do know that having been swept hard into the undertow, I'm barely writing. I know that right now, I rarely leave comments on other peoples' blogs. That makes me sad, because I have found so much support and so much inspiration from their (your) words. I know that some days putting one foot in front of the other, thinking of what to have for dinner, finding moments to smile and laugh and really BE with my family, is an effort.

So what does the future hold?


Wellness, I hope.

Joy. I believe.


It will find me giving thanks,

every single day,

for the life I have, the people in it, the love in it.


I know it will see me
walking daily into love.


Today is Thanksgiving.

Today I am scared. I am sad. I am uncertain.

And I am so utterly thankful.


.