Alone Time

One thing homeschooling moms lack is alone time. While all my public school friends have roughly 1200 hours to themselves each year I feel lucky to get 2 minutes alone to use the bathroom. It never fails that as soon as I disappear to change loads of laundry or god forbid take a shower, someone comes looking for me. I can only guess that they are afraid that I have hidden a giant stash of oreos behind the washing machine, and that I keep a ziplock baggies full of pudding in the shower drain. Of course they are mistaken. Those things are actually hidden under my bed...

Obviously this leads to me sometimes crave solitude like a fat man craves a big mac. I dream of visiting a coffee shop and sitting there as a lady of leisure with a book for hours. I imagine myself walking around a shopping mall without anyone begging for to go to the Disney store. I'd settle for a moment on the toilet without anyone knocking on the door.

There are those rare moments when I catch a break, and the kids are gone to a sleepover or playdate. On those days you would expect me to be in heaven, and it is nice to get up in the morning and not be climbed on immediately. Still the way I feel on those days makes me wonder if I have forgotten how to be alone. For example, this morning my kids are at Gramma's house. When I awoke at 6:00 I got out of bed because that is usually the only alone time I get, but then I realized that I would be alone for a few hours today. I considered going back to bed, but it was too late. I was wide awake by then. I spent the next hour trying to decide what to do with my time. It was like the freedom paralyzed me. Finally I settled on blogging, but now that I am nearly done I am faced with the same dilemma. Usually all of my time is devoted to what I have to do; so that I am not able to decide what I want to do when the opportunity to choose presents itself. Maybe I'll go back to bed...