Letter to the Misfit Homeschooler

Hello Dear Friend,

How are you? I am hanging in there. I am feeling my misfitting very much this week. Do you find that there are some weeks you simply feel it more than others? Why this week more than others? I don't know. Maybe Venus or Mars are in retrograde or something. Maybe Uranus started to show it's true colors. I have no idea!

This past Monday, I just felt lonely as hell. I mean REALLY lonely. Hubby has been traveling a lot and I am home alone with the girls and dogs all day, by myself. Do you know what's like to be surrounded by no other adults for weeks on end? To not have any close friends to go hang with? To have your days and nights consumed by other people's mental illnesses? It. Is. Exhausting! Not only physically, but mentally and emotionally as well. Add to that, I am not part of a church and we live in the Bible Belt. Not a great thing to not do around here. I have nothing against church. I simply have something against people using religion to claim bigotry and judging others is okay because of religion.

All this week, I kept seeing all these beautiful posts of other homeschooler's kids who are so advanced. They are taking college courses in their young teen years. They are reading at age 3. They are traveling the world, taking in all the culture and sites and sounds, learning more than any text book could teach them. They are trekking through forests and mountains, doing expeditions on boats and learning from experts. They are engrossed in books like Pride and Prejudice.

Yep. You got it. We don't fit..yet again.

Here are MY signs that we are misfit homeschoolers:

1. Neither of my kids are headed for a National Honor Society Membership.
2. Neither of my kids are going to be part of Mensa.
3. We don't go to church & are not religious while living in the Bible Belt.
4. My youngest is "in" 3rd grade and reading at a preschool level and writing at a preschool level.
5. My oldest is a "senior" and writing at a 4th-6th grade level and reading at a 6th-7th grade level.
6. We spend more time driving to and going to therapy sessions (psychiatrist, therapist, occupational therapy) some days than doing any educational work.
7. We have no set schedule (see 6 above).
8. We don't have a ton of friends (see 3 above).
9. We don't get invited to parties very often.
10. Both my kids have mental illness, one more than the other. 
11. Both my kids have severe learning disabilities.
12. Both my kids have severe social anxiety, which causes them heartbreak.
13. We don't live on a farm and we don't homestead.
14. We don't start our day with prayer nor do we end our day with prayer (but I sure do pray throughout the day!!!)
15. Both my kids are the most amazing people I have ever had the pleasure to meet and raise.
16. Both my kids are individuals and I allow them to be such.
17. Both my kids are outstanding people who have their own thoughts, wants and personalities which I encourage.
18. Both my kids have passion and want to follow those, not be stuck in a box told what to do.
19. Both my kids think for themselves.
20. Both my kids have overcome more than I can even put on this page.

Do you share any of these tell-tale signs? Do you have any of your own? I'd love to hear them. I know I don't fit in. I know sometimes it is lonely and sometimes it hurts. But, in the end, if fitting in meant losing my self, which I have fought so hard to find and maintain, then I will be lonely and hurt because those are authentic and true.  How about you?