When I say I’m enthralled with all things school related, it borders between obsession and pure delight. I love opening a new package of pencils and books simply to take a deep breath—a giant whiff of opportunity.

You could say I’m infatuated with new beginnings in learning.

While the idea of learning something new sounds marvelous, my challenge lies in the active learning process. I’m much like a car that starts but is left running in the garage. I’m perfectly okay sitting in the garage for a few extra moments, and the trouble is that I don’t know when to leave.

Decision-making is usually excruciating because I never know when I can move on. I’ll open a fresh pack of pencils and call it a day—a revival of optimistic intentions.

When I started thinking about my kids’ schooling options, I immediately got excited about all the possibilities. Private school? There’s someone who could customize my child’s education and be experimental! Public school? What an amazing way to get connected with your community! Homeschooling? Wait, you’re saying I get to call all the shots?

I get to call all the shots.

For someone who is especially driven and loves all the options, I like to place myself in the driver’s seat. But, just like I mentioned before, I get a little too complacent.

I’m perfectly okay with my version of complacency. Let me ignore the problem by tiding it over with a bandaid of new ideas instead of throwing it out! My email inbox is an archetype of this. I recently found a receipt for something I bought two years ago. I never know when I might need it next.

So I married my complacency with the ultimate choice in school choices—homeschooling.

At first, it was perfect. I customized our days to any schedule, our timeline, any and all education, and every opportunity. Plans or curricula followed my high standards. But it was too much. So I pivoted, and I found another issue—the same cycle started again.

Here’s where it ends: we’re no longer homeschooling. Just admitting this fact gives me hives. I hate that I gave up on something that, on the outside, looked like it worked. My children soaked up information like sponges. Our days presented so many opportunities. Our discussions on educational information and how it intertwined with our beliefs were plentiful—pure magic.

But my obsession became a black hole.

Here’s a fun fact about black holes—no one knows what’s inside, but it has its gravitational pull. The pull is so strong that it sucks light in, but nothing comes out. The outside of a black hole makes it looks like it glows when it’s apparent light is absent on the inside.

For us, homeschooling looked glowing on the outside, and I got sucked in the middle. While that sounds awful, let me explain a little more.

I lost my identity in homeschooling. I poured over lessons, schedules, and more, but I lost joy in every other aspect of my life. I devoted too much, too often, to make homeschooling glow. I knew better, but didn’t know where to stop. Or rather, I didn’t know where to begin and go. My pivots were simple tiny fixes that could not fix how lost I got in my children’s education.

The truth is, my kids needed a mom more than they needed a homeschooling teacher.

They required me to be more intentional about my relationships with people, God, and everything else around me. I decided to put the car in drive and just go—and leave homeschooling behind.

So here’s to the revival of optimistic intentions no matter the appearance of your school year. May it be that public, private, or homeschooling may provide you with just the right tools to get your educational pursuits in proper focus.

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Oh, and want to know how I came to my conclusion? You need good friends to push the car along behind you to get you started. So thank you, sweet friends. (And a special shout out to my friend Adrienne who simply said, “Hey. You made a big change. Maybe you should write this one down.”)