No Time for Anything Else!

   Last week, an older gentleman was asking me many questions about me and my family : D   I am quite used to this by now, and it is actually fun to me to answer such questions.  After all, when you are differnent than most people you have to be willing to answer lots of questions, or else go hide!  Being the sociable homeschooler that I am,  I prefer the first option .

The conversation went something like this…

"Where do you go to school?"

"We’re homeschooled"

"Oh! That is good.  Especially with the way that the world is today. Have you graduated?"

"Yes" : )

"Are you going to college?"

"No" : )

" Are you working?"

"No" : ) Then I remember, oh yes, I do teach music lessons, and that usually satisfies most people who think it is very weird when you aren’t going to college, and don’t have a job : ) So I told him about that, and he said, " Oh great, great!"

   Now, he was being very nice, and wasn’t trying to be unkind in any way, but I was talking to Leah about it later and said, "Now how come most people think that staying home and helping your mommy isn’t worth anything, but if you tell them you are going to college, or working a job, they are so happy for you?!"    If you think about it, how does it really affect them if I decide to go to college or not?   Or if I have a good job?    I suppose that they probably have an idea in their mind of what "the best" is for you, and they want to see you have that "best" .   When they find out that you aren’t going to college or working, then–oh my!–what is there for you to do all day?!  Well, here is my answer…

   Yesterday while I was shopping at Joann Fabrics (one of my favorite stores!) I came across a bin of scrapbooking stuff for a dollar each. I was looking through all these wonderful things, and came across a package of quotes. As I was reading them I found my new favorite quote, which happens to be by Emily Dickinson.

 

"To live is so

                                                                                                   startling,

it leaves little time

                                         for  anything else."

 

    This is very true of my life…I am too busy living to go get a job or go to college! I am not saying that to go get a job or go to college is "bad"…it’s just not the best for me.  For me, it isn’t living! Milking goats, sewing, cooking, gardening, knitting, helping sisters with math, and spending time with friends and family is living. For someone else this might not be living, but for me, it is : )

 

 

 

  Pollyanna cried out in dismay. "Oh, but Aunt Polly, Aunt Polly, you haven’t left me any time at all just to–to live."

"To live, child! What do you mean? As if you weren’t living all the time!"

"Oh, of course I’d be breathing all the time I was doing those things, Aunt Polly, but I wouldn’t be living. You breathe all the time you’re asleep, but you aren’t living. I mean living–doing the things you want to do: playing outdoors, reading (to myself of course), climbing hills, talking to Mr.Tom in the garden, and Nancy, and finding our all about the houses and the people and everything everywhere all through the perfectly lovely streets I came through yesterday. That’s what I call living, Aunt Polly. Just breathing isn’t living!"

             —from the book "Pollyanna", by Eleanor H. Porter

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