Writing, HE and autonomy

I feel a little ramble coming on.
I'm not sure that this post is going to make it to the publishing stage but we'll start and see how it goes!
I usually start a blog entry knowing what I want to write about and it is usually sparked by a certain event, activity or photo. But today it isn't like that at all.
I felt the need to write. I can remember feeling like that as a child. Sitting down at my desk (a heavy duty shelf at the right height, across the alcove in my room) with pencil or invariably fountain pen in one hand, with either a clean sheet of paper or a new little booklet I had just made from scrap paper on the desk in front of me. And I wouldn't know what to write about. Occaisionally I sat down because I had something I wanted to get down on the paper before I forgot it, but usually because I wanted to write. I enjoyed writing. Creative writing. Writing letters to penfriends in various countries, some English and some...not!! Writing thank you letters. Writing an informative and funny letter to bring a smile to a relative that spent a lot of her time living in hospital. And sometimes when the urge to write was so great, but the creative juices were simply not flowing, I copied things out of books. ( Incidentally, I hated writing essays for homework)
I realise now that had I been Home Educated, had I not spent so many of my days being forced or coerced into doing things I either did not want, or did not enjoy doing, had I been able to always sit down when I had the creative urge and write what I wanted to, I probably would have written a whole lot more and maybe would have learnt more about myself. Beatrix Potter springs to mind here.
Instead, I was at school like the majority of children and forced to think far too early about 'What you want to do with the rest of your life' and I made so many bad decisions.
Writing for me stopped in my teenage years when I felt writing down things could be providing evidence for my extra curricular activities, and that was not a wise move!!!
So here I am at 35 still learning about myself. Still working out what makes me tick. Trying to mend a broken part of me that just doesn't seem to want to heal. Looking back and remembering some of the things that I dreamt about when I was a child, and realising that they aren't so different to what I dream about now. Wanting to write and share our life stories with other people and not knowing where to start!! I have almost come full circle and what was it that made the the circle break, or distort somewhere in between? Not having the time to learn about myself whilst growing up. School.
So here I am, wanting for my boys the chance to learn about themselves and not to be forced into making decisions about their future until they are ready. Working out what makes you tick is so important and can save years of fumbling around in the dark so to speak.
Only an autonomous home educating life can give them that. Time and space to just be.