{ HERE FOR THE JOURNEY // THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN OUR "STORYTELLER TOOLBOX"... }

i just finished up a conference call chatting homeschool and life w/ my homeschool sister/friend. we talked for hours about transcripts, college, credits, making plans for the future of my babies education and the path that i’ve found myself solely responsible for. i left the call a bit numb. not sure how to begin to process or dissect the information i’d just been fed. invaluable information. a space where gratefulness doesn’t even begin to accurately convey how I felt about the time that she has chosen to invest in our journey.

instead of feeling engaged, enlightened and excited to move forward i felt a suffocating sense of overwhelm. uncertainty, doubt and fear gripped me in a place they were uninvited. i felt an extreme urgency to quit playing “games” with all of these “unschool” ideas and fanciful thoughts of a “true education” that we’ve been dreaming of and get back to reality.

the reality of a an educational system that was all that i’ve known up until now. the system that, after 14-18years of our lives, will drape us in a puffy-sleeved gown, structured cap w/ colored tassel and textured paper where our names are surrounded by the words like “bachelors” and “degree” that somehow encompass and therefore certify all of the knowledge that we have acquired up until this point. the textured paper where our names are surrounded by the words like “masters” and “degree” that make us suitable applicants for what lies ahead.

please understand, i am not at all against these institutions of education. i think that they are admirable and beautiful in their intended purposes. it’s execution beyond intention that draw my concern.

“what will you do with this knowledge you’ve been given? what will you do with the information you’ve acquired? the wisdom you seek will make all the difference! ~ words from their mama, me”

in moments where i felt a suffocating sense of overwhelm, uncertainty, doubt and fear, i thought of these words that i remind my young explorers of all the time. what will you do with this knowledge you’ve been given? what will you do with the information you’ve acquired? the wisdom you seek will make all the difference! it is not my goal to be ignorant and ill prepared for what lies ahead but rather to be educated and informed enough to make wise decisions with the information that i’ve been given and this is exactly what i went on to do…

last week we made our way to longwood botanical gardens. it’s been my mission to echo this sentiment since the moment we started on this journey …

“you are an explorer. you’re mission is to explore the world around you as if you’ve never seen it before. take notes. collect things you find on your travels. document your findings. notice patterns. copy. trace. focus on one thing at a time. record what you are drawn to. ~unknown”

and they’ve embodied all of the above. spending the day decluttering and organizing our “storytellers toolbox” because memory keeping is my ministry, lol. i journaled those words in the caption of an instagram post which reminded me of what i’m doing here. TELLING OUR STORY! at some point i had to decide that i’m HERE FOR IT ALL and keep deciding that very thing over and over and over again. we are here for this journey of faith and love where the most important thing in our storytellers toolbox is THE STORY OF OUR JOURNEY!

i went back to the notes from my conference call chatting homeschool and life w/ my homeschool sister/friend. the one where we talked for hours about transcripts, college, credits, making plans for the future of my babies education and the path that i’ve found myself solely responsible for. this time viewing all of her invaluable information through a lens full of faith.

faith for what lies ahead. where our home and school is rooted in purpose, driven by faith & love and built on a foundation of wisdom and grace. i added to my notes. notes listing their strengths and weaknesses, their interest, gifts and unique abilities. potential paths to take them where the spirit leads. i added notes on college prep in case they are to choose a path that leads in this direction. notes that included organic chemistry, calculus, physics w/ a lab… while our school will always be lead by purpose, compassion and love we’ve moved into including assessments, more structured essays and an assignment here and there.

we are journalist. explorers. artist. observing the world around us. looking for truth and telling our stories of faith and love and they are listening. they are listening to every word that i tell them about who they are. we’re growing here. sometimes that feels scary. sometimes it feels lonely, frustrating and uncertain. but, the bloom will forever be worth the wait.

watching them feel, touch, smell… soak in every blossom and every bloom forever fills my heart with hope for our future.

we’ve been working purposefully on reorganizing our website, blog, shop and all of our other little corners of the inter webs w/ my babies right next to me, we are HERE FOR THE JOURNEY, FRIENDDSSSSS… and we hope you are just the same.

with all the love,

syreena