The Dearth and the Angst

As per usual, life has gotten in the way of blogging, which is as it should be.  Being should occupy more space than expression. Doing than thinking.  Practice than theory.  Living than communicating. This is the mentality I have been trying to live since quitting my former (obsessive-compulsively posted to) blog a few years ago, and more recently. It's a constant challenge and I often fail due to my propensity to all things intangible, chiefly written words, whether my own or others'. My one victory is that I have never texted. But that's mostly because I'm too cheap and lazy.

Really, what it boils down to is that I don't have a sensing preference. I am intuiting with a capital N (iNfj), which means I prefer to operate in the internal world of ideas and ideals, abstractions and concepts, dreams and visions.  Extraverted sensing is my inferior function, and I've been developing it ever since I entered my 30s and started having children.  Parenthood of young children is a very hands-on role.  Physically caring for another human being who needs to be held, fed, clothed, diapered, bathed, wiped (nose, hands, butt), and just generally touched a lot requires the intense use of all five senses, especially tactile.

At the same time I became a mother, I became a homemaker, and that too is largely sensory.  I can cook well, but I'm slow, oh so slow, and clean up takes me even longer.  But the truth is that I spend more time researching and analyzing recipes than it takes me to make them.  And really, this is how I am about everything.  School (and I was a professional student my whole life through my 20s) really didn't prepare me for becoming a mom and homemaker.  And because of my natural abilities, I didn't learn to manage time well--I crammed and performed well under pressure.  Pressure (usually caused my own procrastination) these days results in me being impatient with the kids and yelling.  Ack.

...So where am I going with this?  I yearn to write, to create, to carry out all sorts of brilliant (or not so) ideas, but I absolutely cannot in good conscience do any of that (including blogging) if my house is not in order.  And I don't just mean externally, though that's a big part of it, but not in any Martha Stewart sort of way.  Right now our homeschool room is in process, as am I, and I need someone to light a fire under my behind to get me sorting (the story of my unorganized life), arranging, preparing, planning, and just generally getting our little academy ready to open its doors in...oh, just over a week.  Already, I feel myself pushing that forward a week, because there's simply no way...

And that, my friends, is the beauty of homeschooling.  There is no pressure.  And yet there is.  Never before have I felt so compelled to get my act together.  It may also have to do with a sort of microcosm in our home.  This summer I finally got our daughters' room in order.  The systems are in place, and with regular checking, it's staying pretty much that way.  It was well worth the glazed over eyes and wrecked back I had from strewing a million tiny objects on the rug and figuring out which sparkly speck went with which playset (and we don't even have that many toys!).  I also converted our Ikea coffee table (the one with the little sorting slots underneath) into their Calico Critters dollhouse table and toy holder.  Whenever I repurpose something (which is pretty frequently), it's like getting a shot of adrenalin.

Systems are key to creativity and productivity.  I'll never be a slave to systems, but I intend to master them.  First, though, they have to be put in place, which is where I am right now.  I've actually been here for years (trying to catch up) but a couple of new things this year are making my dreamy self actually move forward--one is homeschooling and the other is not having any more children.  This is the first time in the last seven years that I have not been pregnant or had an infant.  My youngest (and my only boy) is totally milking that (no, we're not still breastfeeding!).   Much of my daughter's lives at ages 2 and 3 are a blur, because of their siblings entering our lives, so I'm reveling in actually experiencing my son's transition from toddler to preschooler.  Speaking of which, he just started going to preschool part-time, three mornings, which is another reason I actually have some hope of not only getting everything in order, but actually doing a decent job homeschooling.

There you have it.  The dearth of posts lately and the angst of me having lots of things to say (and the drafts/pictures/recipes to prove it), but absolutely having to abide my conscience and get down and dirty with papers and books and other printed materials which have hindered my life for far too long.  I have no intention of going away from this blog, but I don't know how long it will be before I post again, let alone regularly, so pray for me.  To follow through.  To become fast.  To stop reading everything online and crafting emails as if they're novels and looking up 50 too many recipes every night for dinner and all the other zillions of microbial time wasters that keep me from using my gifts, both to bless my family and the great big world my heart aches to somehow give to as well.