Choices

Wednesday was the first day of school where we live. My Facebook feed was inundated with photos of smiling, well-dressed students getting ready to join their friends in the classroom once again. A couple of them were heading out with their brand new backpacks for the first time.

I sometimes think about what it would be like to send my kids off somewhere else for hours every day. They're both young still--too young for kindergarten. (My little Sunshine has a fall birthday, so she just missed the cutoff to start this year.) My children are always so close to me. It's both exhausting and amazing at the same time. I have a hard time even fathoming what not having them underfoot from sun up to sun down would feel like.

It's one of the biggest gifts of living in a small home: I get the opportunity to really know my kids. Really know them. Day in and day out we do life side by side. All of their questions and fears and hurts and successes and celebrations--they bring them to me. I share answers and kisses and bandages and cheers and get to see them grow and learn and become themselves every single day. I'm never far away.

I can't imagine missing a moment of that.

Like so many other families who live in tiny houses, we have chosen to homeschool. So next year, when all of the other kids return once again to their hallowed halls of instruction and learning, my girls will still be here beside me. Doing life together. And I'll probably still wonder what it would be like to send them off to school each day. Sometimes I think the break would be nice. For so many reasons, though, I know that this is the best thing for our family for the next few years at least.

It's just like anything in life though, from the size of your home to your chosen profession to the way you choose to educate your kids. There are so many ways to do it--so many right ways. And we all choose the path that's right for ourselves and our families.

I sit here and imagine what it would be like to have chosen differently. I look back on every decision we've made that's brought us to this point. Days where we've chosen schools and majors and employers and said no to other opportunities. Times when we've held back and times when we've rushed forward. The series of events that led to us buying a tiny home and filling that tiny home with children.

I look back over some landmark decisions in our lives, and I can't say that I regret many of them. Sure, the circumstances themselves have really stunk sometimes. It's staggering to have a doctor tell you that your twenty-two-year-old husband will most likely get to keep his leg. (That's a pivotal moment in our life story, as you can imagine. Many of the choices that have led us to this place were born out of that moment and the moments surrounding it. And he did keep the leg.) Every fork in the road has brought us to this point in our lives, and on days like today when I look back and wonder a little bit how we got here, I am reminded of Robert Frost's famous poem and "how way leads on to way."

We're here. And for the most part, we're content.

(Ask me how I feel again next year.)