Captain Fantastic and other wobbles

It’s been a funny old year. This time last year my whole world had been utterly dragged from beneath my feet. In years to come I will remember certain moments from that 10 days between realising Ady was really not OK and I was going to have to do something about it and getting him out of the hospital forever. It was life changing, lessons were learned, realities shifted, I became aware of how life really can change in a split second, pondered on a whole load of ‘what ifs’ and had some of my previous absolute certainties wiped away like a dry cloth erasing a green word on our bathroom white board. My stance of ‘it’ll all be fine’ came into clear doubt and while previously I am sure everyone else has always doubted me I have never doubted myself before and I don’t think Davies and Scarlett had doubted me either. Or Ady for that matter. This time I didn’t have all the answers or all the reassurance and for the first time I was aware not just of how much our current lifestyle revolves around Ady being fit and able but also how much relies on my own mortality too. I felt this crushing weight of responsibility on my shoulders that I had never felt before. A responsibility to manage even if I no longer had Ady by my side to help carry the load but also a responsibility to carry on being alive and okay myself because no one else can fucking finish what I have started.

I have always said that our style of Home Ed, our style of parenting is a real long haul one. That if you don’t teach your kids stuff like reading and writing and maths then you have to be around to make sure they get their in their own time while supporting them. That this whole trust the process philosophy we have bought into requires the process to be allowed to get completed. I know what’s missing, where the gaps are, why some bits are not finished yet and how we will tie up those loose ends in the future. But a change in that whole approach could completely mess the whole thing up. Instead of teaching Davies and Scarlett what to think I’ve been allowing them to learn how to think.

Last January was a drama not of my making. I am used to coming up with mad ideas, bucking the norm, choosing the different path and explaining and justifying why and how as I go along. This time we were remarkable but not through any action of my own and even worse than that we quickly became quite unremarkable, very not special and that was even tougher to take. It came weeks after losing my grandmother and not having had any chance to actually process that having not seen her, not attended the funeral, not sat with people who had known her and talked about her, only listening to my Mum on the phone ranting about her instead.

It came also just after I had stepped down as a director. Suddenly I not only had no voice in the future of Rum I didn’t even know what was being discussed. It was the right decision and a huge relief but also I probably needed to grieve on it a little. It was the loss of something I had invested so much of myself in and attached a real sense of myself to. In my own head and heart I was defining me with that as a huge part and suddenly it was not who I was anymore. I needed to find the new version of me without that aspect.

Davies and Scarlett both very suddenly are taller than me. Davies has a whole set of online friends who I know nothing of. He’s met one in real life, talks to them on social media at every opportunity and has developed interests totally outside of what I have introduced him to. Scarlett is still adamant she will not read – the reality is that she is probably a lot more able than she admit to me or herself but it niggles a little despite me knowing it will be fine. It is clear from the last year that Rum no longer offers the opportunities it once did for them both. It does not meet their needs, spark their passions or excite them as it once did. It’s so hard to know whether this is normal teenage apathy or a marker of something more.

I can still pull it out of the bag just like I used to – an hours conversation with one of them about what is making them excited or interested right now can lead to a whole host of ideas, research, possible opportunities which I can make happen and indeed have done recently. It has pushed us to commit to one more year here to see if we can squeeze the very last of what Rum might have to offer us that we can’t get anywhere else before we finally call  time on this adventure and head off to the next one. For Davies this is a community radio idea which may well lead to something very exciting. For Scarlett it is making the most of the volunteering opportunities here on Rum and the contacts with the deer research project and SNH research. I have already discussed it with Lesley and Ali and we can organise various things for her to get involved in this year.

But I haven’t actually made any of that happen just yet, it’s still there as a germ of an idea or in the very early stages and so I feel it, bubbling away in my head, taunting me when all is quiet and worrying at me on how reliant still on me their Home Ed adventures still are. And what if they one day hate me for not making them learn stuff, or do work books, or take exams? What if I should have insisted on a language or a musical instrument? They don’t even remember all those hours and all that effort in their early years – did it even make a difference? Could they have been better off just sent to school? I really, really don’t think so but this is the dark bit of the caterpillar in the chrysallis I think when I am fairly sure I know a butterfly will emerge but am secretly worried about just how much junk food it ate before it went in there and whether that will effect what comes out.

So bring on Captain Fantastic! I won’t spoil it incase anyone reading (not sure anyone does read anymore, does anyone even blog?! Michelle I know you do!) has not seen it and wants to but it’s a film about a man who is homeschooling his family in the wilderness and how circumstances mean they are forced into mainstream society for a while where the big old gaps in their ‘education’ and ‘life skills’ are thrown into sharp relief and their weirdness is highlighted. Bad timing / good timing? I don’t know but it certainly came a soul searching time for me anyway so was a very near the knuckle viewing experience.

I could easily end this post on a high – I know what I could do to make myself feel better, I know how to draw this post to a close with positives and believe me I am feeling positive – in the main – but also a little delicate and perhaps not quite as sure of myself as I usually am.