Retiring? Who? Me?

I once met a man who introduced me to his wife, telling me she was "retired" after working twenty-odd years, "homeschooling."  HE said he had a lot of respect for all the work she did.  Wow.  great compliment.     She proceeded to tell me, she could not have done what she did without him encouraging and supporting her.  I never really thought of the end of homeschooling as retirement, but in a way, I guess it really is.  Time to get some new "tires" and hit the road on  another adventure!

This is exciting!  But it isn;t here quite yet.  we have a few more weeks to go... a graduation party to  plan, record keeping and testing to do.... but it is just around the corner.

Ahhhh, I can taste the freedom, even just knowing that the end of our textbook adventure is near.  This is "senior-itis"  I am sure.  Not the kind old folks get, but the kind teens do. 

Math is over in a few days..... (It's an on-line math program.) My ds still has two lessons in his Litterature book... several in Physics and History, and a national Fencing tournament in Reno to attend, but all in all, we should be done with the schoolbooks and call it a wrap by the middle of July. 

This will be good.  I shall be "retiring." 

I love it.

In my senioritis, I find myself testing the waters of independence... and often.... I find that I am even forgetting I am still a homeschooling mom.  This is because my dear son actually has his school pretty much under his control and is doing a great job of it too.   I have been jokingly saying to a few friends that I am retiring this year.  AMazing.  Didn;t even think of myself as a working mom, but truth is, homeschooling is a job, but more than a job, like the "U.S. NAvy" it's "An Adventure!"

How true that is!  Homeschooling is even like sailing a ship through uncharted seas!  ,  

It's a little hard to grasp mentally sometimes.as a long-time homeschool mom that I have one last child moving on into the world out there, and as he does, I will no longer be "homeschooling." I wonder, "Will I loose my sense of identity? 

I answer myself, "No."  Homeschooling is not where I find my sense of self, value or worth. No,  I have learned, that like many other places and identities where we hang our hat, so to speak, such things which we might try to find our identity in, are fleeting and quite temporary.  As a Christian, and as you, dear reader,  may know, Christ is that immovable and true anchor worth clinging too in this life, not some identity we have found for ourselves to be comfortable in, like "being a homeschool mom."   Besides, as avid learners, explorers and educators.... homeschoolers never "really" retire.... they just pass on to higher learning levels.