...breathe...

I realized this morning that I have spent the last 3 years worried about losing my right to homeschool the kids. It seems so obvious and blatant, but looking back, there was good reason to worry. I clenched my teeth to get through an awful abusive relationship and divorce, and forgot, somehow, to unclench them when the real danger passed.
For a while, I was at risk of losing my home, and then my kids.It was not through any fault of my own, but because of a legal system that can be incredibly punishing to women and children. If I went homeless, I had literally planned to live in my van in a Walmart parking lot. I hear you can camp there any time. Only a month after the year long journey to securing a mortgage for my house in my name, I learned of a friend who was attempting to care for another woman in that exact situation. Sleeping in the Walmart parking lot in her van at night, sending the kids to school and herself to work during the day. This in the middle of winter as well.
There is more that I won't go into on this blog entry. Suffice to say that it has been hard. Excruciating. Frightening.
Things are still hard. Very hard. But I do not see that I or the kids are in great danger. Things are calming down. The likelihood of someone taking what we have is slim. And I realize I need to relax and savor these homeschool days.
This will be hard work, but as a friend reminds me, I am the baby being birthed, not the birthing mother. Is that a strange thing to say? I told my friend that I feel like I am on the verge of a re-birth. I am shedding the old weariness and abuse and divorce recover, and ready to take on a new mantle.
My friend said, what if you are not the one GIVING birth. YOU do not have to do the labor for this particular transition. YOU are the baby. And what do babies do to be born? Not much. The ride that undulating wave and slide on in to this world. It is ok for me to not WORK SO HARD during this latest transition.
She says all this knowing that I am usually going to Herculean efforts to induce change.
Could it be that I must merely enjoy this latest ride? Then who is in charge? Who is my birth mother?
And of course, the answer is automatic, arriving before I even finish the question. God. The Universe. My cosmic Mother Mary. As if I ever had control over those great things. My Heavenly Father and Blessed Mother are in charge.
So today, my only job is to receive. I will be conscious and savor what we have here. What I have built for my children in the good and just shelter of the Universe and its Creator. Mary's starry mantle flows around me in support and inspiration like deep blue waters carrying me forward into the world.
I am being birthed right here where I belong.