A few weeks ago I was watching a retirement channel I tune into from time to time. The man has been retired for about five years. He discussed the fact that what he expected to do in retirement and what he’s choosing to do in retirement are quite different. He said he expected to travel and do lots of things. Instead, he finds himself most happy when he sits outside and listens to the birds. He observed that his plans and expectations were made when he was 40, 45, and 50. He had a different mindset, body, and energy level at that time. Now that he’s retired, he doesn’t have any interest in those things.

That struck me because I’ve been working through those same questions the past month but wasn’t able to fully articulate them until I watched his video.

Retired Homeschool Mom Blogger

We finished homeschooling and had Caroline’s graduation party. Then I just kind of hit a wall.

The past two years have been intense. Trying to finish Caroline’s high school years and then deciding to add an additional year was significant. It was the right thing to do, but the last few months were a discipline of pushing through to the end. We were both ready to be done.

I was also working very hard on this website, trying to lay the groundwork for when I completed my responsibilities as a homeschool mom. I finally envisioned having the time to do all the things here I never had the time to do properly.

And then I had the time and I had no idea if I wanted to do any of what I had thought about and planned for.

That’s why his comments about having plans when you are younger and then arriving at the moment in time resonated strongly for me. That’s where I found myself.

It was really disheartening to feel that way because I have truly worked so hard the past year behind the scenes. Probably too hard given all that was going on in the rest of our lives. And then to get to the finish line and find myself questioning if I even had any interest in doing what I had planned was really disorienting, to be perfectly honest. I did not expect to feel this way.

So I tried different things. I did things. I stopped doing things. I turned off the comments for a bit because I realized some realities about dealing with those. I removed posts. I added posts. I thought about just being done and closing it all down. I did a lot of things. It was like I just had to try different things to find my equivalent of sitting in the backyard and listening to the birds because I wasn’t even sure what that looked like.

I tried turning the comments off because I realized I no longer like debating in the comments. In the past, I thoroughly enjoyed that. I no longer do. I would prefer to just write my posts and allow people to simply read them. It was actually quite nice when I posted a few times recently with the comments off. It felt very freeing to know I didn’t have to wonder if I was going to have to defend my views or if someone would come along and try to blackpill everyone with negativity or questioning what I wrote.

At the same time, I genuinely enjoy interacting with people in the comments. So it feels like a bit of a quandary.

So all that to say that I’ve been surprised by how I’ve felt since the end of homeschooling. This is not what I expected. At all.

I did decide I was not going to force myself to make decisions or just push through and do the things I had assumed I wanted to do.

A Titus 2 Woman

Another YouTuber discussed reaching the age and point of life when you are a legitimate Titus 2 woman and realizing that no one really wants to hear from you. I thought that was interesting as well. It’s often said you reach a certain point when you become invisible as a woman. You are too old to be relevant but not old enough to be interesting.

I’m feeling that way. There’s so much I’ve learned as a homeschool mom and Christian parent that I would like to share. At the same time I feel rather irrelevant when I look at what is popular on YouTube and social media in the homeschooling circles.

So that’s where I am right now. In the end, I have to please myself here because relying on externally motivating factors (traffic numbers, income, comments, subscriber numbers, etc.) is basically chasing after the wind at this point in time in the online world. So whatever I end up doing, it has to be enjoyable for me and add something to my life. That probably sounds self-serving, but if I’m enjoying it then I know others can as well. But if I’m only doing it for others, it simply isn’t going to last at this stage in my life.

I hope if you are at a similar point of life, you find something I’ve written here helps you as well.