I realize I could…or maybe even should, break this down into more than one post and expand upon many details but quite frankly I’m lucky to be posting at all these days, so let’s not push it.

I’ll start by saying I’m seriously disappointed that this is the last L&L gathering, although there will be others (thankfully closer to home) that we have plans to attend. But I guess there is just something special about your first.

Upon arriving, all I felt was overwhelmed. We were coming off a rough couple of weeks and feeling like horrible unschoolers and here we were surrounded by all these happy faces with tons of frenetic energy running past us. But that quickly disippated as we found our sweet friends, Miranda, A and E who had moved away several months ago and as we roamed around the conference area absorbing new faces.

Somewhere on tha first day, Zeb discovered a gaggle of boys his age and from that point on we were only able to rangle him up for an occasional meal and a very late departure for bed. He spent most of his time in “The Game Room” playing Yu-Gi-Oh, Rock Band, RuneScape and a bazillion other things I can’t begin to pronounce. Being that I was on a conference high I failed to get a single picture of him in that element.

We flitted through the rest of the week listening to inspiring people give inspiring talks and picking up nuggets of wisdom. I even managed to make an entire room full of people cry – a talent I take great pride in – with our story and struggles. (Yes, we struggle. This blog may include the word “Happy” in the title, but it’s more of a general emotion and a goal than a constant occurance in our lives. Yet.)

It was so great hearing that it’s okay to be imperfect; that you can just pick up and tackle the next moment. That great change doesn’t occur in months or even almost two years; that it happens layer by layer and that my patience is the greatest gift I can give in the process. That sometimes the best thing I can do is to wholeheartedly agree that a situation sucks, rather than try to fix, fix fix it all.

Justin and I both attended Beth’s Peaceful Partnership speech and round table talk. Neither of us said much, accept to tell the other what Love Language we thought we were. But I know we absorbed much and it was good to be reminded to treat each other with as much gentleness and understanding as we do our child. Perhaps the biggest boost our relationship received however was in finding the drum circle. For once in our 8 years together, these two polar opposites found a shared joy and we are SO excited to find our own djembe drums and local group with whom to play. We even wrangled up the courage to perform onstage during the talent show with a small group, and feeling all the love and excitement from the crowd, felt totally in our element and without a stitch of nervousness. Have I mentioned how totally awesome these people are??

I had so many other Ah-ha, little phrases or words that stuck in my mind, but I can’t recall them all now. I’m hoping that means they’ve simply buried themselves in my subconscious to be called forward at a later date and not that the lightbulb went to waste.

I have to say, I believe my favorite part of the entire conference was finally meeting Heather, who has been an online friend for over a year and with whom I click so well. Skylar and Zeb, although going seperate directions most of the conference, seemed totally natural together. And although in the conference chaos we didn’t have as much time to chat as we would have liked and we never made it into town for Mama Drinks, I loved what little time we did spend with her and TJ and her boys. Why is it that we have to live so far away from each other? We’ve been teasing for months about finding a mutually agreed upon city to both move to and now I think I might actually try to do some convincing.

But I think the biggest impact the entire conference made on me is to see it all in person – all the peaceful parenting, all the respecting of children’s ideas and dreams and desires, all the joy and laughter, and seeing more of the action rather than the theory. I can’t begin to count the number of times I’ve recalled a person or the energy of the entire group when faced with a choice at home. It is so much easier to know how to respond when you are in a setting of such comfort and acceptance than when you are back in “the real world” and trying to apply all you know in your heart to your actual actions.

I took a few handfuls of pictures, but only uploaded a few to Flickr. I was trying to be more “in the moment” than behind the camera and didn’t end up with many worthwhile shots. I’m sorta kicking myself for that now. But it was a great time and I got the pictures that mattered the most. I miss everyone and the atmosphere already. But we have plenty to look forward to this fall – new fruit trees to plant, cooler temps that will enable us to finish up the yard conversion and of course the looming holidays. Ack. Can’t we just go back to the conference?