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This fall I did the thing I swore I'd never do -I went back to school. I wrote most of the things on this site recently after I left and feelings of frustration and fury were still burning strongly within me. I don't take back the things I said. I still consider them completely true. However, I think my perspective has changed a little.

I don't know all the reasons I went back. Maybe it was partly because of the intoxication and anticipation in all my friends the last few days of August. Most of my memories of school until last year are very positive. I was the kid who loved school. I did well and my teachers were more like my friends. I gobbled up the information I was given. I was always excited. Part of that excitement came back this year, despite my "bad experience."

When I left I was unable to balance myself properly and I had too many demands on me. Even if I could have balanced myself I valued other people's opinions of me too much to try. The best way to get my high marks while still doing everything else was to work myself to death, which is, quite literally, what I ended up doing. I began to crave my teachers' and parents' praise and the admiration of other students. I didn't really like myself that much last year because I wasn't doing anything that filled or fulfilled me. I wasn't writing and that was the worst thing I could take out of my life. Without writing I could not process the world, I could not get an accurate picture of what mattered, I could not feel like I was achieving something just for me so I had to look outside myself for these things.

I realize now that I cannot completely blame my breakdown (and break-through!) on the school or the school system. It was also my perfectionism that got me into it. (Yet when I think about it, even if that was bred at an early age, school really does reward that behavior!) After a few months to think, readjust, and do my own thing I was curious about how school could work out now that I was feeling healthy and strong and now that my priorities were straight. It was learning, not marks, praise, or looking "perfect" that I truly valued. I thought about how the experience could be different if I didn't worry about my marks or credits and if I took days off when I needed them and didn't commit myself to as many activities (no yoga, band, choir and volunteering all at once!). I thought about the possibility of taking a few courses (rather than the required seven) if I registered as a part-time homeschooler. I thought about throwing myself into something and certain teachers who were truly kindred spirits. I also knew now that I could leave at any time and was not "jailed" in the building, which made a tremendous difference. I thought and I mulled and I knew I had to know if this could work. So I went back.

At first I had a very difficult time communicating the fact that I didn't care about or even really want credits. When I said, in a school, that my goal was learning I was looked at like I was crazy. To me it seems that there is something wrong when you go to an institution -which is supposedly there to help children learn- and you are regarded as strange for saying that is your purpose in being there. After quite a few meetings I was accepted back into the school for a "trial week" I basically selected seven courses that fit into my time slots and many of them I would never have chosen for myself.

I stayed at school somewhere between four and six weeks. I eventually decided that seven courses were just too many and the school (administration) was very cooperative in letting me take four courses as a part-time student. I am truly grateful for that. I would like to stress the fact that this second school experience was actually quite pleasant. Not only did I have a different attitude, so did many of the people around me.

However, because I was not allowed to stay at the school during the periods I had off to do my "homeschooling" work I had to find my own transportation back and forth. This would have been a minor problem, except that most days both my parents were working. So I would walk the hour and five minutes to and from school or bike. I actually didn't mind it at first. It was quite a peaceful walk even with the cars honking now and then because there was no sidewalk. But I soon found my schedule didn't correspond with anyone's… not my friend's in school and not my friends outside of school. Although all my courses were clumped together, there were days when I had one class in the morning and one in the afternoon and I had to go home in between and so the time I should have spent studying other things was eaten up by walking to and from school. And other than these smaller issues there was something else that was quietly beginning to nag at me. I had had my chance at school but now a tiny quiet whisper keep telling me and luring me in a different direction.

Last year I needed to leave. There was no question. In some respects I was sick. I became physically sick because I was mentally sick of this routine and this cramming of information that had become meaningless to me. But this time there was no impending strain, there was no large weight, there was no panic and no urgency I just felt, quietly inside myself, "I need to leave, it's time to leave."

I left for the second time about two weeks ago. I found that it's a lot harder to justify your decisions when you are not "sick" and don't have your health as an excuse. The truth is, last year my physical symptoms were side-effects of not wanting to be there, yet somehow being "sick" makes anything more acceptable in our society. This time I thought I would be more supported because I had time to think and I felt quite healthy. But what should have looked like a more sound decision was often met with panic. In many ways I found it harder to leave this time than the first time. I found out that adults are somewhat terrified at the thought of their children experimenting and that is just what I was doing.

As teenagers and young adults we need the freedom to change our minds once or several million times. We need that space. Yet I notice time and again how so many of us feel pinned into our plans for the future. Everything is planned out for us years in advance. Even taking one "wrong" course could lead to our "destruction" in our future careers. I saw more clearly than ever when I was at school these past few weeks that the majority of people are too busy to really live. We prepare and prepare for high school and then for university and tell ourselves things will slow down after grade twelve. Then in university we prepare for our careers and families. While working, we take care of our families and try to prepare for retirement when we will (finally) have time to pursue our interests and passions but many of us may find in retirement that our health is failing from a long time of not taking care of ourselves and so we prepare for death.

We are so busy preparing for life that we don't have time to live it! This is what I saw at school. I knew I could do well in school and get scholarships and go to university. But I thought about the fact that people are diagnosed with serious illnesses all the time and how they suddenly make different decisions once they realize how precious their life is. I thought about how I would have to put my life on hold, to an extent, and I thought about how an opportunity was open to me right now. Right now I have the chance to explore so many avenues and see what I like and don't like but yet I don't have the burden of supporting myself or a family. This is a unique and unusual situation for most teens. Most are too busy preparing or escaping or recovering from the ceaselessly turning treadmill of school to start this exploration. So I decided to take advantage of this opportunity. I decided to get excited about my life and to try my best to live as if every second were precious and to make decisions that I would not regret.

I think we get so distracted by trying to have all the things in place to give us happiness that we forget that happiness is not a set of circumstances we stumble over or even prepare for -it is a choice! Most of us do not even trouble to ask what is really important to us, we just unquestioningly follow a path of getting, getting, getting and somewhere at the end we will be able to relax and sit in our riches and be happy. But it doesn't work that way at all. Happiness is not something you pursue. If your happiness is always in the future, is always after you pay the bills, or finish college, or anything, then your happiness is always one step ahead of you. And if your happiness is always one step ahead then you will never catch up - it will always be there in front of you. I didn't want that for my life. I know there may be a point when degrees and paychecks may be a bit more important to me, but right now I want to reach inside myself and make the decision to be happy. I want to become a happy, well-adjusted, vibrant, intelligent person and I want the flexibility to do that.

I am happy. I'm happy right where I am. I'm beginning to see things in the brightest colors now, whereas when I was feeling depressed everything truly seemed grey. I'm busy and I'm living my life with creative flourish. I'm learning to dance, taking writing classes, flute lessons, going to environmental group meetings and camps, doing algebra and chemistry, reading, taking long walks, listening to all kinds of music and wearing clothes that I really feel comfortable in and not just what is fashionable.

I know many of us are a bit afraid of being happy. But for me that's what this website is all about. It's not about homeschooling necessarily, but about making choices that bring us to happiness. For most people, being happy signals "arrival" at our destination and the end of striving for our goal. But in my eyes happiness is the journey. It is keeping your peace and tranquility despite the ups and downs. It is going on with your goals and jobs and family while still remaining true to yourself and feeling you have a purpose beyond what you do. Your purpose is what you are. It's being full of giddiness just because the leaves are so beautiful or the music on the radio moves your soul. That is happiness to me and being able to find that quiet space within myself is a sacred adventure that will serve me wherever I go in life -whether traveling, in a job, or in a university. If I have that I will be o.k. no matter what. And I'll be more than o.k. That is what school has taught me but also what life has taught me and that's why it's not that important where I am in life but how I am. And if leaving gives me greater freedom to find this, then it is right for me at this moment. That's all I need to know.

~ Laura