Finish Strong

Pixel #3: ...?

Ok.  Writer's block.  Kind of.

I've been working on the Pixel #3 post off and on all month.  It was a post I started back in 2014 and never finished, so I picked it up again at the beginning of May.  Frustratingly, though I have plenty of thoughts and content, I can't get it to come together.  A more accomplished/experienced blogger would have moved on to something else in order to revisit it another time, but "accomplished/experienced blogger" doesn't accurately describe me and finishing is something in which I take pride.  So, instead,  I plowed ahead for 4 weeks writing and rewriting.  The fruit of this persistence?  I still have a two-year-old, unfinished post, haven't posted for a month, and am moving on anyway.  (Inexperienced and prideful are not the best of attributes.)

However, I did move on finally this week.  I still can't get that post to come together, but moving on caused me to think about why I have such a hard time doing it.  And it really boils down to what I alluded to above: I am a finisher.

Pixel #4: Finishing

I don't know if I am a hard worker, but I am definitely a finisher.  That isn't to say that I don't work hard.  I do, but it is the finishing that drives me.  Work is just the means to get there.  Work isn't to be feared or avoided.  It is to be embraced.  It gets you where you want to go.  But work for the sake of work?  Value in work in and of itself?  That's always been harder for me.

building a deck for my future in-laws

My dad stressed(s) the value of hard work with us.  He stressed not setting limits on what you may accomplish through effort and determination and perseverance.  Earning the moniker "hard worker" is among the best compliments you can receive from him.  Somehow though, whether my dad emphasized it, or it was implied, or I just connected the dots between work and finishing, I definitely picked up finishing as a value as well, or maybe instead.

I'm not sure how it happened, but, at some point, I concluded that work done without finishing is just dust in the wind.  It is meaningless.  A hard working sculptor who sweats over a mass of granite, who hammers and chisels chunks off of the whole, has done nothing more meaningful than the sledge hammer wielding prisoner in a quarry if he doesn't see the work to completion.  If the sculptor doesn't finish, he hasn't brought art out of stone.  He has only smashed rock.  Similarly, a runner that races the mile and stops after one lap hasn't run the race.  It doesn't matter how well she did up till that point.  Even if she worked her hardest, ran herself to exhaustion, and was in the lead when she stopped, stopping, not finishing, negates the effort.  Success in the race is only measured of the finishers.  Hard work is important, but only in the context of finishing, because the value of the work is directly measured by the value of the finished product that the work produces.

Right?

As I said, I'm not sure exactly when I figured this out, but I do know one of the experiences that shaped this belief.  When I was six years old or so, my dad signed me and my brother up for a track program called Rainbow Runners.  We went to a couple of practices, and because I didn't like running (still don't), I decided that my event would be the shortest one: the 100 yard dash.  Also, I was pretty fast, so I figured I'd do well (because being one of the fasted of the 19 kids in my 1st grade class clearly should translate to winning a city-wide sprinting competition).  

Not Bubble Wrap

This is the time of year when school starts to wind down for us (yesterday was Emy's last day of 8th grade!) and I begin to think about our plans for next year. Every year, Joel and I take a look at each of our kids, determine needs and goals and attempt to chart a course that best fits them and our family. It is also the time of year where I reflect on how I've come up short, failed to meet an objective or have done a disservice to one or all of my kids. Since I have also had quite a few people ask me over the past several weeks about why we homeschool and to avoid the ever spiraling "I could have done better" narrative, I thought this the perfect time to document the "why" of our homeschool journey.

Joel and I are both "trained" school teachers. I have my elementary teaching certificate and he has his secondary teaching certificate. We both spent about 5 years teaching in the public schools and neither of us ever imagined that we would wind up homeschooling our kids. I remember when Rylee was about 4, Joel asked if I would ever consider homeschooling. My answer was a clear "NO WAY!" Or as Joel recalls "Over my dead body!" Either way, I knew she and I would butt heads and was convinced that she would never be able to learn from me.

Rylee started Kindergarten at a small private school, Providence Christian School and Joel and I were involved from day one. Joel was part of the board and I had the opportunity to help choose curriculum, write objectives, and train teachers. The small class sizes, loving teachers and Christ centered education was precious and the lessons we learned during that season are for another post. But like with many, homegrown, grassroots, types of things, our numbers dwindled and the school closed its doors when Rylee and Emy were in 4th and 2nd grade respectively. I had spent that last school year visiting different schools in the area and none fit the specific type of education that I was seeking for my kids. I had had a few friends that already dipped their toe in the homeschooling waters and after lots of prayer, I knew I could at least give it a try.

I have such wonderful, fond memories of those first few years of homeschooling. 5th grade, 3rd grade, kindergarten and a toddler. (Jack and Halle are actually just finishing 2nd and 4th grade and it is crazy to feel like I am beginning the journey all over.) During those early days, we had so much time. We were no longer bound by someone else's schedule. The kids could sleep in, stay in their jammies for the morning, I didn't have to pack lunches everyday or make sure the uniforms were clean and accounted for. As the kids have grown and their stages of life change, Joel and I revisit the homeschooling conversation often. But at the end of the day, we come back to the same conclusion, homeschooling is best for our family.

Live Like You Are Alive

(For an explanation of what I mean by pixels and pixel #1, go here)

Pixel #2: Living Isn’t Not Dying.

That may not seem to be the most mind-blowing statement, but I don't think many people get this.  I know that when I reflect, this isn't how I actually view life, and from what I observe in others, I don’t think I’m alone. And while it isn't completely clear to me, I’m pretty sure I’m on to something here. 

It’s like when you are heading out the door to the zoo so your son (I'll call him Johnny) can go see Simba (all lions are Simba).  Before you leave, you check your bag for the 3rd time because you’re sure you’ve forgotten something, but everything looks right, so you apprehensively head out anyway. Sometime about three hours later, you’re standing next to the lion exhibit with Johnny wishing that the obnoxious family with the ice cream would quit showing up at the same exhibits and proceeding to the front of the viewing area as if all you were there for was to hold their places while they stopped at another snack kiosk about which you just told your son “no” for the 347^th time.  You’ve spent the last 20 minutes standing in the sun trying to point out how that dirt colored lump differs from the rest of the dirt colored surroundings, convincing Johnny the aforementioned dirt colored, inanimate blob that looks like a discarded carpet remnant is actually the same animal as Disney’s majestic movie star, and internally cursing these big cats for acting like, well, big cats.  You are on the verge of giving up on the lions and caving in to the repeated requests for ice cream, partly due to the futility of the lion-spotting exercise and partly because while standing on the pavement, in the sun, arguing with Johnny, your body temperature has risen to 103.7 degrees, when you triumphantly notice movement: the subtle, (can I say catlike?) twitch of a feline ear.   But as you are asking Johnny if he has noticed the smoking gun in your case for the existence of the lions (because an ear twitch has now become the equivalent of Simba roaring from a rocky ledge while Elton John sings in the background), you notice that Johnny has long since ceased watching the mound of dirt that his parents have been lying to him about.  Instead, his covetous stare is directed at the bratty girl with the ice cream, which just about pushes you over the edge into the oblivion of insanity when he says, “My skin hurts.”

“Oh, #@%!  I forgot the sunscreen,” you say.  To which the obnoxious family with the ice cream glares disapprovingly at your clear lack of parenting skill and ushers their daughter away to protect her sensitive ears.

So, just like when you know you are forgetting something on the way to the zoo, I’m pretty sure I’m on to something here.  And here it is.  Drum roll.

All of us die.  Death is part of life.  But unlike death which none of us choose and which will happen to each of us whether we like it or not; unlike death you have to choose to live.

Okay, this probably needs some unpacking.