This is the third blog post I’ve started tonight. I had one about how I seem to have dropped out of NaNoWriMo this year. I had one rambling one about the homeschool co-op we visited today. And now I have this one. I don’t know what this one’s about yet.
I think it’s about how I should go to bed rather than post to my blog but that I feel compelled to post something, probably because the idea of quitting both NaNoWriMo and NaBloPoMo is just too much for me to handle. “Believe in something,” I tell myself.
Or maybe it’s about how I feel nervous that my daughter is behind now with making lasting friendships. Back in Utah, she had friends she’d known since she was three. Many of these friends had friends they’d had for longer (from birth, essentially), and while my daughter was late to the party, she was pretty close to getting in on the ground floor. With the move, she’s starting from scratch again, but now these girls are five and six and seven and have had friends they’ve known since they were born. My daughter just can’t seem to find her place amid these types of friendships. I’m pretty much reconciled to the fact that my nomadic lifestyle has made it so I’m essentially locked out of those super-close friendships because I have neither a friend I’ve known since kindergarten nor a twin. But it’s a little harder to let go of the hope that my daughter might have a close, close friendship. She’s starting over late in the game, but she’s still not even seven. You’d think this wouldn’t be a huge setback, but I worry it might be.
Or maybe this post is just about how I keep baking squash even though it’s clear my family doesn’t really like it. I keep thinking, “It’s high in beta-carotene!” I keep thinking, “We can put maple syrup on it!” I keep thinking, “We can toast the seeds!” All of these things are true, but they don’t make my kids (or me) like squash any more than we already do. Unless it’s in pie. And while I’m fairly comfortable flouting convention, pie for dinner is where I draw the line.
Imperfect Happiness 
I really think I’m going to do it. It’s so much more…me. You get to set your own goals and stuff, so you can do what is realistic, yet still a bit of a challenge (and of course, only you know your own life, so I think that’s why this works better than other things). I have a good start on a novel and I’d like to have a bit of structured time to work on it.
Cam moved around so much when he was young too, so I can see how that affects a person. It’s very hard (and I think military kids deserve to be told that THEY served their country as much as their parents!).
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To paraphrase Homer Simpson, I find your views interesting, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
In other words, “hear, hear” on the military kids thing. Military families don’t put their lives on the line like the family members who are active-duty, but they do sacrifice a lot. (I think I had a post about that for Veterans Day 2010. Is there anything I haven’t blogged about?)
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If it’s any comfort, I’ve found that the later in childhood the good friendships occur, the longer they last. Children change a lot, and friendships change. I don’t know anyone right now who is still best friends with their best friend from grade school. However, the friends they made later, they still hang around with. I have a friend I met in the 8th grade that I am still very close with. But the kids before that, we had major falling outs because we became too different as we grew up.
Last night I actually wrote a little!! And I had people talking in my head again! It was such a comfort. 😉 I’m thinking that rather than trying to do NaNo again (which I CONTINUALLY swear myself off of), I am just going to continue doing ROW80, which, as the person who came up with it said, is like NaNo for people with a life. I did three rounds of it last year and was pretty successful. I can give you the info if you haven’t heard of it.
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I haven’t heard of ROW80 and would love more information!
Good point about the later friendships. Being that I never stayed in the same place longer than three years as a child, it’s never been really clear how these things have worked for what seems to be the majority of the population who don’t move around a lot. So, perhaps I can postpone my worrying about her close friendships until she’s ten or so. 🙂
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Update: I looked up ROW80. It’s awesome. I might just take a break with the goals for the holidays and then start the January ROW80 round with new goals in mind. Maybe.
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