on joining groups

So I know how to reach other home ed families, there's a local yahoo group, but I'm stalling. I do feel enthusiastic about getting support/variety on board but at the same time I'm thoroughly protective of us right now. And this is new to me!! Not sure its been modelled for me the idea of sticking to your own, of battening down the hatches ~ I easily lose myself in someone else's trip. Which is perhaps why I became so anxious and depressed going back and forth to the school playground each day, picking up on the stresses and strains of other families, the teaching staff, the secretaries, the queues of traffic, looking searching out for a connection, a mutual sharing of experience. So now I'm nervous to reach out. I know that we will find friends for our educating journey but just like you can't go 'out there' to search for your life partner, I feel it would be needless distraction to try sifting through other home ed families in an attempt to fulfil our 'criteria'!!

When I was waiting to meet my life partner I had the idea that it is wise to live my life as truly as I can, pursue my own path as closely as possible and then there was the biggest chance that I would find someone who's path was running parallel to my own. In hindsight this worked. So i'll apply the same to family friend searching!

It feels hard at the moment to be on a different time scale to our current friends but do you know it also feels really refreshing. Knowing that I'm singing from my soul note song sheet gives me naturally more energy to offer friendships, even if we are not doing the same things during the day and seeing each other as frequently as we did when we were in the schooling rhythm, when we do meet up it is with new news, experiences, stories.