Honesty....

I said I would be honest when I started this blog. I knew honesty can be ugly, and I accept that. But can you?
Can you accept, even embrace what I'm about to tell you? I challenge you to read, put yourself where I am, and listen with an open heart.

I want to quit homeschooling.
I want to put the kids back in a school where the teachers are overwhelmed, tired and underpaid. I want to send my kids off to school each morning with a lunch and a hug, then have a cup of coffee all by myself and drink it in  calm and quiet. I want to clean up the house, maybe eat lunch while sitting down. I want to wander the grocery store alone instead of bolting up and down each isle with three children in tow. I'd like to set the table and serve a nice meal. I'd like to experience a meal where all the dishes are hot and not one is burned or forgotten. I'd like to spend an hour or two helping with homework saying things like,  "Well, your teacher said so. So do it." I'd like to send them off to shower, tuck them in with a book and go watch a movie with my husband, read or knit.
And then I'd like to do it all again the next day.
And I blame these feelings on my son. Which is awful and terrible, and I am well aware I'm going to hell for thinking this.
The past year has been.....horrible. We've been to doctors, psychiatrists, therapists etc, and we finally have diagnoses for John. (yes, diagnoses. As in multiple. Go big or go home.) I'm not going into it all, it's his story, his diagnoses. But I will tell you that each one impacts me physically, mentally and emotionally. I feel as though my brain and body are bruised at the end of the day. Or eleven o'clock in the morning. You know, depending on the day.
We spent most of 2014 searching our way into a diagnosis. I've always said, "Name it and fix it. Or at least know how to attack it." I "know" how to attack this, to some extent. Actually implementing the therapy, well, that's incredibly hard.
Today, after a rough day of tears and screaming - by me- I called my husband and told him to come home, I was leaving.
And I got in the van and I left.
(Violet is 12 and she was here.)
I sat in a parking lot and stared into space, acknowledging all these feelings I have about my kids and homeschool right now.
I have no answers as to how I get past these feelings. I am back in therapy. I started back when I realized that knowing the name of what John has doesn't solve the problem. In fact, it almost makes it worse because now I can read books that tell me exactly what is happening to him and then give me all sorts of wonderful advice on what to do. Except that I have to remember to do it, do it well and be consistent. And do this at Target or a relatives house. You know, places with absolutely no pressure attached to them. I also have to somehow handle that fact that this looks like a behavior issue, like I'm just a crappy parent and can't control my child. I know relatives think this is the case, oh yes, I know. Because you can't misinterpret, "John needs to be disciplined. Kim just needs to get control of him."
 And I'm tired of educating people.
I sound bitter. That's because I am.
And homeschool is really, really, really hard. It's supposed to be, yes, I know this. But crying every day and running away wasn't what I had in mind when we decided to do this.
So, that's it. I'm having some major problems and I want to quit. I'm not going to, I'm not. The me that is sitting here right now knows that this can end. I can't afford the special needs school down the road, public school is simply not an option for us, and John has just started a really great program at the homeschool Christian academy we go to. This is it's first year, created specifically for children with special needs and I have already seen him grow socially. But don't think that when I was sobbing today I cared.
Honesty.
Brutal. Ugly. Raw.