(updated and recovered from wobble can be found here)I have had a bit of a wobble today, I'm not sure why I just think it has been a very busy few days and I am tired.
I have 2 essays that are due in and I have not even started them, let alone looked at the materials. on top of having to try and find new suppliers for my ebay store, which you can take a peek at here and maybe buy something if you so feel inclined, (you never know you may find something useful).
I have client Tax returns that need doing besides my own that should have been done ages ago, this financial turmoil seems to be getting worse not better, the harder I try and the more I work the less money seems to come in, it wouldn't be so bad if I had some kind of maintenance to help out but the pittance I do get of £6.65 every two weeks does not really go very far towards the twins upkeep, with a mortgage and council tax and clothes to buy it's been tough going the past few months on top of the usual mad mess of a house and the piles of washing and mess building up around my ears that the twins make every day.
It is very difficult being a single parent in the first instance so I have told myself not to be to hard on myself, I don't have anyone to put the washer on for me, or cook for the evening for once or even decide what we are going to eat. Someone to say tenderly "you go and have a sleep I will watch the twins" or take them to the park whilst I get on with the things I need to do, someone to even just give me a kick up the back side when I am feeling a bit down or just someone there to tell the exciting bits of my day to.
It's at these times you think maybe it would be nice to just have a tiny weeny bit of support from somewhere, but sadly this is not the case so plod on is what you do.
If I had the support I wouldn't know what to do with it anyway, and at my time of life after being a single parent for the past 26 years, it would be a bit difficult to 'let anyone in', and I gave up asking for help a long time ago as it usually always fell on deaf ears, so, we just plod on 'alone'.
I know I am doing too much but what choice do I have?, either way I am buggered and have to plod on..... Send the twins to school and get a job and I will still be in the same situation only with a different set of problems, school bullshit to start with, uniforms to buy, nagging's from teachers, lateness every day as we have an inbuilt 'always late' button.
The twins are well behaved, but then I am used to their quirky side, school would see it very differently and I would be constantly in school on bad behaviour lectures for behaviour that isn't naughty, but part of their personality, and the most important reason is they adamantly 'do not' want to go to school.
Life would be just as difficult as it is now, as I would still have to do housework and manage household day to day tasks alone, the same as I do now, only with the added stress of working for someone who under appreciates me and pays me peanuts.
The bills wont stop, they will just increase with petrol and work clothes and diners every day, school
trips and those extra bits of cash these schools are always asking parents for, and the worst of all, I would have to deal with working with people I can't stand every day, on top of doing probably a job I hate.
Study is not really an option to give up voluntarily, the twins won't be babies forever and I do need to prepare myself for that rat race when they flee the nest and do their own thing, and I don't intend to carry on doing those pittance jobs that cover the basic bills, if I have to work when the kids leave home I am hoping my last few years on this earth with not be spent surviving on peanuts and I have at least a bit of something to have a holiday or two, I reckon I deserve it after the hard work I have put in to life, despite all the irreversible mistakes I have made that has put me in the position I am in now.
Or I could just lie down and forget it and just not prepare for then, and just float along until my deathbed hits me, but my bones wont let me do that, it feels like if I give up study then I give up on life. I love the twins with all my heart but I do need something for myself, which is my study, but at this rate it looks like I am on the path to failure anyway if I don't get my act together and get these essays done and the study material covered.
I could just give up trying to get the ebay side of things going properly for an income, but then it would feel like all that time and effort I have given over to it was just a waste of time, but then what would I do with that time besides study, I think the main reasons for study and Ebay are that they fill my time, it fills that emptiness that would be there otherwise when the twins are not there but in bed., so it is a given I would probably just fill it with something else.
I am just on a life review I think, I just worry that I am not giving the twins enough of what they need, whatever that may be, I am pulled in so many directions I just feel like I am about to rip apart like a piece of fragile paper, it is difficult at the moment, but made more bearable by knowing I am doing my best, it may be all wrong, but I am doing my best.
The overriding factor to everything is that what am I doing all this for? and that is for the twins, to ensure that when they grow up they will be well prepared for the world and all it's tough times and mistakes they will make along the way, to prepare them for real life, educate them to educate themselves and live a fulfilled and happy life but to also enjoy the journey along the way.
I look at them now and see that whatever I am doing is working for them, watching them decide what they want to do each day, they have started to decide for themselves what they do, each morning they have announced their plans for the day, be that art or reading or playing in the garden even down to what they want to eat or if they want to bake or do something in particular, like find out something they want to know about. To my astonishment, Louby even asked for some work on her English project and to do a lapbook, Oliver regularly requests Maths Seeds.
Watching them recognise words and actually put pen to paper and write something of their own accord without being prompted, asking me to read certain words for them that they don't know.
They are doing it, they are learning and educating themselves, becoming inquisitive and finding out for themselves, questioning.
How would that all change if they went to school? I would become un-engaged not only with their learning but with them, they would just go with the motions of school giving me the odd tit bit here and there, I would have no clue about my children. I would be giving up my responsibility and handing my children over to the state to educate as they please, to mold into whatever they choose whilst I do what many working single parents do which is spend their time working long hours trying to pay bills, missing out on my kids lives, we would not be a family unit with any purpose, just people living under the same roof practically strangers going with the motions.
I have no doubt they will be happy with whatever they do, they are happy children but statistically very few children go on to achieve their full potential or even tap the surface, the majority leave for mundane jobs or hit the dole que, the lucky ones go on to college or university only to join the rest in the dole cue or in mundane jobs, the chunk that make the grade and end up in good jobs or further their education or even travel or start businesses do that because they self study.
I have to take the gamble, I have to look at our situation and decide what is the best way forwards not only for them but for me too. What is the purpose of school?, the purpose is to educate children for the world of work and in finding a way to economically sustain themselves, my view from my window is the outlook for us is bleak, failing schools in our area where the majority end up on the dole on or in mundane low waged work with very few or no aspirations in life.
It would be wrong of me not to try to give them the tools to make a better life for themselves than what is expected of them in schools in my area, where aspirations are low and kids leaving school being able to read is an achievement. I want more for them than that, I want them to enjoy the journey to whatever they do, and the conventional path for us is one I do not want them to tread!....
The young man Stephen Sutton passed away today and lessons can be learnt from that young man, to never give up, life is to be lived and not squandered and he certainly made the best of what time he had, he was thrown lemons and made lemonade. If you don't know who Stephen Sutton is go and check him out here and give yourself a dose of inspiration.
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