I don't wanna

It's weird to think, but home schoolers have summer holidays too.  Mostly because it's damn hard to continue with business as usual while the rest of the world is on holiday or, at least, pretending like they don't have jobs.  Around here we get only a couple months of summer weather and then we're back to the snow, so folks like to fit in as much sun and fun in as they can, while they can.

It's a little frantic, actually.

Already, we are swamped with invites for beaches, swimming, camping, parties, fairs, conventions... am I complaining that we are so popular and have all these things to do?  No, not really.  My actual invites from real human friends remains slim.  But social media does like to push along the many, many events happening in my town and around the province.  On Facebook, you know if you invite twenty people to your pool party, fifteen will respond with 'Interested' and three will show up.  Can you imagine if people started going to all the places they say they are attending?  Cloning technology will advance by light speed out of sheer need for multiple selves.

(I know that is not how cloning works, but I didn't want accuracy to get in the way of the point.  As every uncle everywhere has said, why let truth get in the way of a good story?)

There is a lot out there to feel like you should go to and even more to get all FOMO about.  In my neck of the woods, everybody goes camping and wants to share their favorite camp spot with friends. Mostly, cynic me believes, it's because it's about the laziest hosting experience possible (short of your own funeral) and inviting a few friends to a campground gets you off the hook socially for the rest of the year.  No need to clean your house or provide food or entertainment or gifts, just invite everyone out into the woods with their tents and some beers and your job is done.

As a family, we are generally pretty busy.  We take our hobbies seriously.  Hardly a day goes by without an activity or appointment or sports practice.  During the day, the childs I are off to something, and without any scheduled concerns, we'll go on a park crawl (like a pub crawl, but with more playgrounds and less booze), visiting or some big long hike.  Like most home schoolers, we're never home.  In fact, one of the major reasons why we chose to home school is that we couldn't figure out how to do all our out of school activities and still have time for school.  Assuming we also like to sleep.

But at the start of this summer, with roller derby lurching into off season, all the activities taking their break, our dojo limiting their summer hours... suddenly, our time to participate in summer fun like camping and fairs and beaches is wide open.  And guess what?  I don't think I want to.

I have, it feels, been neck deep in recreational activities all year long.  Facilitating the childs' activities and my own.  I'm tired of recreating.  I'm thinking I could use a little bit of buckle down and work.  A holiday from fun.

I could sum up my entire attitude to this summer to: nope, don't wanna.  I don't wanna go camping or to crowded beaches or street carnivals or even to run down the ice cream truck.  It's all sort of more-ish when I could use some less-ish.

When I was a kid (here we go), summer was a time of slowing down, not speeding up.  I remember having entire weeks of nothing planned but laying in the shade looking up at the clouds.  I am not advocating a return to my somewhat uninspired childhood (I have many sad pictures in my family photo album slurpee cups, which I apparently I had a stronger bond with than my family members or friends), but it seems that one thing that I really need a break from is recreation and entertainment.

I am already entertained.  And it's tiring.

Part of this may be coming from the fact that I am a bit injured and pain is taking away my sleep and ability to enjoy things.  But the feeling of needing to wind down and just NOT for awhile has been growing for months.

Could also be because I'm going to be turning forty two years old this summer and my what's-it-all-about-anyway-when-you-get-right-down-to-it questions are also starting stealing my sleep.  I mean, really?  What's the point?

I think I'm going to try something novel, for us home schoolers.  I'm going to stay home. 

Optimistically, I'll get a few things done around the house and go easy on the pocket book.  Maybe even someone will feel sorry for my camping-improvised childs and take them away for a few days for a camping experience I don't have to be involved in.  Some studio time, making something I can  use (another quilt? Something about this thirty above weather says no), making some real progress on girl child's downstairs room that we've been building for a year or so.

Realistically, it will probably be a lot of rolling around on lawn furniture, complaining about the heat and reading books.  Or dropping the kids off at the swimming pool while I go hide in the air conditioned library.  Really, that sounds very nice too.

Anything is possible when you refuse to make plans.