School came up as a topic of conversation over lunch – the first time it's been discussed seriously in more than two months. And now that the meal is over, I'm sitting on my bed, pondering why my first reaction to the thought of school was terror.

Terror? Where did that come from? I can understand disappointment or even anger, but to feel a mind-numbing fear that still ripples through my neck and shoulders.... it seems horribly illogical.

I'm not supposed to feel this way. I'm a reasonably intelligent homeschooled girl belonging to a good Christian family. Aside from a deplorable tendency to get behind because of my own laziness, I don't have any subjects I struggle at. I'm never terribly overloaded with all the things I need to do, the school atmosphere is pleasant and friendly. And at base, I like to learn. Why this fear? I don't understand.

What exactly am I afraid of?

Is it that I'm afraid of having so many hours of my time taken for studies I have to do, whether I want to or not? That must be part of it. I am very possessive where my time is concerned: I guard it jealously, and mourn over the loss of it.

Is it the fear of having my mind being enslaved to whatever it is I have to learn, unable to ponder my own thoughts? Yes, at least partially. I think I could stand six hours of physical labor every day better than I can stand the thought of parting with my reflections for those same six hours. As long as my mind is free, then I do not care about captivity. But when I must apply my mind to technical things like math (forgive me actually speaking the name!) – that is the true imprisonment. What is my soul to do during that time? It sits idle, wilting, with no notion of where to go or what to feel. The life of the soul ceases while one is doing math.

Fear of stress? Oh yes. Much stress. Science modules that should have been finished a month ago. Literary analysis reports that must be written, though I can find nothing intelligent to say on the subject. School's-over-memorize-science-terms-finish-math-homework-eat-dinner-write-for-half-hour-bedtime-sleep-wake-up-school-again. How do you breathe when life is like that?

Perhaps the biggest fear, and the one I am most hesitant to name, is the fear of lack of direction. The fear that all our programs are just wasting time, and that I will come to the end of my school career and find myself inadequate to face the real world. That all this time I should have done something else with my highschool years. That I am a failure.

I must be overreacting. It can't be as bad as all this. I will survive somehow.

At least, I hope.