Instead of completing the {w}rite of passage challenge for today, a bit of a brain dump, because the past week has been a hefty one – a lot of it spent in my head. You could say that I need to get out of it. For scribblings much less disjointed than mine, please seek out other participants’ blogs.
In 20 days, we’re moving. If you didn’t see the tweets on Twitter, then you don’t know what I’m talking about, but nonetheless, I had to make a tough decision – do we stay or do we go, despite how it might affect us financially.
Our current apartment, as you may have heard me bitch about 4000 times, is less than 400 square feet. I know there’s some of you with living rooms that size, but that is our bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and living room. We pay a cheap rent for the area we live in, about 40% of my take-home, and that’s been my main reason for living in such a small space – the neighbourhood and price, and amenities made it worth it.
Today, I told my landlord that we’d would be moving out.
We’re taking the vacant apartment one floor up.
For the low, low price of $500 in security deposit that I’ll be post-dating cheques to cover until the middle of next month; almost $200 more in rent, every month; moving and cleaning both apartments in the same day; and dragging Zoë up and down stairs while her dad helps move the big stuff, we’ll get something we haven’t had in a year and a half, if ever since there’s been a we:
Room to breathe.
It’s easily 200 square feet larger, and the layout of it will provide much more storage and mobility, even if the space didn’t. Like, imagine a closet in the bedroom large enough to fit both of our (admittedly small) wardrobes. Imagine a kitchen large enough for us to both be in, without risk of one or both getting burned, cut or stepped on. Or a bathroom with only two kinds of tiles in it – neither of which contain visible mold.
But the single selling factor was the counter tops in the kitchen. They’re not beautiful. But there is a lot of them.
Right now, we have one surface that is ensconced in yellow 60s tile and approximately the size of a dish drainer. That’s boxed in by the fridge and sink. And on the other side of the sink there’s another counter space – the same size, with the same dreadful tiling, and with moulding grout, for extra fun – and then the stove. All in all, I have a single, skinny person’s prep area, as long as I’m not doing anything that requires working on a flat surface.
The new place? Has twice the counter space and none of it’s boxed in, and there’s a little cutout looking into the living room with a counter top on it, too – a serving window, if you will.
Zoë and I will be able to prepare food together, to roll out doughs and toss things in the blender, and to go back to our old habit of her sitting on the counter, stirring the cookie mix while I washed out the measuring cups.
That’s Utopic, to me.
***
I’ve come full spectrum and drank the Koolaid. Zoë will be unschooled.
Whether it’s at home with me, or full-time in an alternative school hiding under the guise of home-schooling, or half and half, hasn’t been determined, yet, but I can’t deny the overwhelming voice in my head, telling me that she is exactly the sort of child who would benefit most from being given the opportunity to decide her own studies.
Her dad doesn’t agree – thinks she’ll miss out on socialization and that “normal environments” are what it will take for her to be successful in the world – but the thing of it is: he hasn’t done any research. He didn’t finish high school, just like I didn’t – was uninterested in it, even though he loves to learn new things and is extremely well-read. And because he doesn’t have the formal “normal” education, though pursuing his dreams, career-wise, were impossible.
He’s basing his opinion exclusively on exactly the status quo kind of thinking that I don’t really subscribe to, and that I would love for Zoë to question as well.
That’s not to say that I want her to be like me, always wondering what the crack in the surface really indicates. I want her to look at something, and look for alternative realities, to embrace her inherent creativity and wishes to learn things on her own, and then to make an informed decision and share her opinions.
I might have wavered, a few weeks ago, picturing France and how it would only be, like, a half-year that she would be immersed into the regular school system. But then I saw something: the school board here in Vancouver has a semi-unpublicized, hard-to-attain alternative program for high-schoolers: mini-schools. They’re for kids who show particular aptitude in certain areas, so they get self-focused studies, sometimes with advanced graduation and credentials for university admission.
The programs? Sciences, tech and sports. I guess the other stuff isn’t that useful, eh?
Next fall, instead of preschool – with the same curriculum as this year – Zoë will likely be home with me, deciding her future a day at a time. Thinking, ‘Man, I want to know about dogs, I really like doggies,‘ and visiting the SPCA, then looking up the traits of certain breeds and their histories, and going to dog showings and borrowing one of the thousands of canines in this neighbourhood to walk. For example.
She’ll have the opportunity to become as well-versed as she wants, about anything she wants, and because of that – because I’ll trust her to be seeking out something that makes her happy; because learning is everywhere and can be joyous, even – she’ll grow more confident in herself and really love picking up books or picking things apart or creating new paradigms of her own.
To me, unschooling is the difference between asking your kid if they did their homework, and then having to force them to if they were uninterested, and your kid being interested all the time.
Rumour has it, unschooled kids tend to be more helpful around the house, too. Bonus.
***
I made another difficult decision about little while ago, but sat on it. Today, I stopped sitting.
I want to clarify something, as a just-in-case. If you consider us friends – and I do consider us friends if we’ve met or conversed or hugged or been there for one-another or you’ve been there for me – then know this:
I have certain ethics and ideals, some more idiotic than others, that are respect-deal-breakers for me. That’s never going to change about me for the simple fact that I like it. It cuts out the bullshit and the heartache, for the most part. Keeps the recycling separated nicely, if you will.
No one should think differently of me, or that they’re special enough to have fit under my extreme ethical radar if they’ve repeatedly committed offenses. I know we’re all special fucking snowflakes, but still, I’m not, nor have I ever been, some one who said that I could accept people unconditionally.
I can’t feel trust for any person who uses, abuses, schmoozes, gossips, cheats, lies, embellishes, cuts down a little person, defames, chooses apathy, elevates themselves or demeans others. Being abusive toward your child, especially without remorse, will cause me to judge, as will things that some still consider minimal, like driving after drinking or shit-talking your ex in front of your children. Choosing to be a girlfriend or a partier instead of a mother or father, to be unemployed when it negatively affects others, to blame others consistently when the common denominator is you… those all cause my eyebrows to raise.
I know that I’m not perfect, I know I’m bitchy and reactive, or needy and suspicious, or removed, or stifling. I don’t have a problem admitting those things about myself. I know I’ve sucked major ween in several areas, not the least of which was being manipulative with men or letting people in. But that’s who I am, and it’s my story, and I’m working on it, and I’m upfront about it before the fact.
And I’m accepting of some one’s right to judge me for it.
I also know that I’ve done things to cause others to lose respect or trust in me at some point, and I wouldn’t expect someone to accept me unconditionally afterward, either. I would have to earn trust back, over a long and lengthy process. And it would be worth it for me to do all of that work.
Why? Because my ethics also call for me to try to make up for ethical failings. So that I can respect myself.
