Transitions

It was the discussion topic last night at our homeschool parent meeting, transitions. That combined with the new year makes for whirlwind thoughts in my brain. Time for change or just time to improve, or maybe a little of both. My eldest is already in transition, taking college courses, for her last two years of high school, the younger girls just stuck in junior high but we should be gearing up for those high school years. I would like for them to also begin college courses in their junior years so I can avoid teaching calculus and lab sciences. It would effectively end my homeschool hands on time a full year earlier than anticipated. Nice, except I don't know what I want to do with my life.

Lounging at home is out of the question, we will have three in college, which means gainful employment must be in my future. Retirement a distant dream in a fragile bubble. So life in the next few years will be filled with transitions. Scary precipices requiring leaps of faith too often for complacency. What's a mother to do? It is amazing to me how much teenagers still need a mother at home. While they all transition there are frequent explosions, hours of angst, and soulful apologies, that shake a home to the core. So until they are all safely out of the house I feel I must remain in my current unpaid position. It would be nice to find something to do now and smoothly and effortlessly transition to full time when the younger two head off to college. This would avoid transition trauma for me, and make life a little calmer in the intervening years. Eighteen months before I need the brainstorm from which emerges the idea of the century. That and the lottery will keep me from transition trauma.