Lilly

Not a lot of people know that I was homeschooled until I was almost eight years old. In the scheme of things, it’s not a very long time. I only missed about two years of sitting in a classroom seven hours a day. But I think even I forget just how much of an impact those two years made on me.

I learned to read when I was three. My mom always says it’s because I saw my older brother reading books and wanted to do the same—just like how I walked on my own at nine months, apparently out of sheer stubbornness. Our family would spend hours every week at the library, where I was left to my own devices and allowed to choose books for myself. I could walk home with books about everything—poetry, fantasy, science—nestled in my arms.

And I would read it all. I pored over hefty collections of poetry and marked my favorites with sticky notes. I read all my mom’s old Nancy Drew books, and when those ran out we bought more from a tiny used bookstore hidden in our cramped downtown. When I ran out of things to read, I started writing. I discovered I could create my own worlds when authors’ weren’t enough.

When I wasn’t reading or writing, I was out. My parents gave me a bike and some limits on how far away from home I could go—boundaries that I promptly disregarded in favor of finding the easiest route to the library, or my dad’s office, or a coffee shop on the edge of the university campus. I looked at life with childish excitement and determination and not a speck of anxiety or uncertainty.

But! I thought to myself, writing this, Why do I refer to that feeling as “childish” excitement and determination? Why can’t that apply to me as a teenager just as it did as a kid?

In English class today I read this essay by Ben Hewitt on the concept of “unschooling,” which is similar to homeschooling but minimizes the use of an actual curriculum. I finished the piece and, instead of answering the questions my teacher had given us, started drafting this diary entry in my notebook.

It was dawning on me that “unschooling” may have been a much more accurate term for my early childhood. My brother and I spent very little time sitting down to do our “schoolwork,” although I readily tackled my textbooks of my own accord. I have a vivid memory of stealing my brother’s spelling book when I had finished my own and becoming obsessed with the word “appendix.” But it never felt like school to me. If I got bored, I put down the pencil and strapped on my bike helmet.

Maybe that’s why the uncertainty started to kick in. At home, it felt like everything was at my fingertips; it only takes a few moments to pedal down the driveway. But once I started going to public school, I would come home too tired to climb onto my bicycle. My parents began driving me to my new friends’ houses instead of sending me off on my own. And the world felt a lot smaller when it consisted of the same 20 faces every day.

Now I know that the world is much bigger than I ever imagined as a child. But it’s frightening and unattainable. I constantly wish that I could get out more, seek out new experiences even within the limitations of my own town, but I rarely—if ever—do anything about it. And that needs to change.

I want to have things to talk about in these diary entries that aren’t repetitive complaints of how monotonous my life has become. I need to escape that monotony. Even if it’s just letting myself scream out loud at a soccer game on TV, switching up my coffee order on Sunday mornings, or finally walking into the bike shop that I’ve been curious about for months. It’s time to take a stand. ♦