big deep breath

The last few days have been absolutely exhausting in an emotional sort of way, which feels like it's crossing over into physical. I got home from work today and just couldn't keep my head up, so I went to bed. I slept for a few hours, so now it's 9:30pm, and I'm strangely groggy. I am thinking I will find an old comforting movie and go to bed again soon. I was supposed to do a 2 mile run, but if I go to bed before 10, I could get up before 7am and do the run in the morning.

I've spent a lot of my evening tonight looking at the Good Vibrations conference website - where I will be speaking at in September. I'm suddenly aching for a good unschooling conference. My mom and sister went to the HSC Conference this last weekend, and it was so odd to hear them talk about it... my first boyfriend was Josh Engle, and his youngest brother (there are 4 of them) is just about my youngest sister's age - and he and his parents still go to the conference also. My mom/sister stopped at their house on the way home, just like we used to when I was going to the hsc conference, and it's just so funny to see that little echo in their experience. I could get ridiculously nostalgic for HSC conferences, but I just don't have the energy for that right now.

However, I do have the energy to say that I am who I am because of conferences like HSC, Live and Learn, Good Vibrations, etc. I am who I am because of groups of unschoolers getting together and taking over hotels so that even those drab pigeon wall colors and carpets end up looking like peacocks and birds of paradise flowers. I am who I am because I had pink hair for most of my teens, and so did most of my friends. Because we had people piles, hugged and cuddled a /lot/. Because we had talent shows, because we wrote poetry on our pants, because we spent so much time online waiting for that one weekend.

I miss being so tapped in to the unschooling world. I saw a new HSC magazine at my mom's house and missed knowing every person who was writing for it. I'm giving a talk about being a grown unschooler and I am suddenly feeling like I should be reversing the talk - asking the audience how I can stay as connected as possible when I am working full time every single day and I don't have kids of my own.

When I exhausted the Good Vibrations webpage, I moved on to Sandra's. I hit "randomize me" and found my mom's page of writing. Then I spent a fair amount of time reading my mommy's articles about unschooling and parenting. It's so funny - some of the articles she wrote many years ago, but they still apply. She's a smart cookie, my mama. She wrote articles on soothing frustrated children, and as recently as yesterday I had wandered into her house looking for soothing, and yup, she followed her own advice.

"my heart is a teacup with hairline cracks" says Witch Baby, and I feel not exactly that way, but more like I am very small, sitting on the edge of one. Either way I lean, I fall. I'm not good at this balancing act. I don't know which direction I want to go. So I am just going to sit here, for the time being. Hoping that it's just those two choices and that the third isn't that the cup is going to crumble under me.

I don't think I am as maudlin as that sound. I think that's part of growing up. I was very upset yesterday and made a list "what would a grown up do?" Yes, part of it involved crying to my mother, but other parts involved making appointments, trying to go to sleep early, and going to work and doing my job.

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I have one zucchini that grows larger every day. I have 1 small pickling cucumber and one loooonng japanese cuke. I have a few small jalapenos, and probably upwards of 70 green tomatoes. The eggplant has blossoms, so do the honeydew. The basil has gone to seed. I am saving up money to buy wood for a new, and deeper, box. I'd like to have potatoes, garlic, onions. Maybe a whole box just for melons and squash.

The remainder of tonight and tomorrow will need to be rejuvenate-Roya day. I am in need of some gentle loving-thyself. Exercising in the morning will be a good start.