We have just a few days left of homeschool. The past eighteen months long ago bled out any desire anyone has to do schoolwork (or in my case, enforce it – see, I’m not even calling it teaching anymore). We still plod on, but I feel like I spend the vast majority of my waking hours doing things I’d rather not.

New York State requires us to finish 80% of our curriculum, and at this point in the year, we’ve certainly achieved that. It would be completely reasonable to call it quits. But to a fault, I am not a quitter. I can see how close we are to the end of the books we’re reading, and I’m determined to finish. I want to get my money’s worth from our online math curriculum. I don’t want my kids’ brains to turn to sludge until at least July.

In the meantime, I’m burning out. Things around our home are breaking, ripping, and spilling faster than I can fix, mend, or clean them. A room I pass through a thousand times a day is full of sewing things gathering dust while I sponge milk off the floor and coax reluctant students through calculating which number is associated with which month.

If I called quits on school now, it is very likely that the psychological demands my kids make on me would increase exponentially for a few weeks until they realized I won’t be entertaining them all summer. They’ll probably eat more, out of boredom, and that means more dirty dishes throughout the house.

The time right after school ends might be worse than school was, so I press on with these last few weeks of structure before completely taking my foot off the gas. We gasp through how recently a womens’ equal pay bill got passed. We gasp at the plot twists in Harry Potter.  (I’m still mad about Sirius Black).

I use up all my energy on the mundane and then my brain burns bright and angry that I’ve let another day pass without doing anything creative.

I did trace a pattern out today, and read for the third or fourth time an article about how to do a small bust adjustment. I sacrificed my kids’ workbook and spelling test time to do it. They didn’t mind and cooperatively hid from me all morning while I crawled around on the living room floor and worked.

I don’t know what this summer will hold. It will surely be different from last summer. It might be too hot to do anything, like it was this week. I might be too stubborn to give up trying to accomplish something and just take the kids to the lake.

We will figure it out, we always do. But right now, I’m feeling tired and frustrated, and stuck.

There’s no space to breathe or get unstuck.       (I know that’s a lie.)

I feel unable to move forward with historical costuming. So when I do have time, I’m making modern clothing, more clothing that I don’t need, because I must be creative or shrivel up and die.

One thing I am accomplishing, besides the procrastinating via cleaning, is I’m proofreading the Chaplain’s next book, and every day, it’s challenging me to get out of unproductive ways of thinking. Yesterday’s challenge was “there are no detours.” We are here because here is where we are meant to be. No choice can ever put you on a path you weren’t already meant to be on.

This time is so challenging, it’s hard to see the benefit of being here. It’s hard to shake the idea that I should be doing something differently to ease daily life – a mental change, a different method of dealing. I have this feeling my whole life will spool out from this place I’m stuck in right now, with the exhaustion of my uncooperative body, the fatigue of an overwhelmed brain, and my bickering children.

I’m going outside for a walk, and hopefully that helps.