(Turn and Face the Strain) Ch-Ch-Changes...

First of all, I always thought that line was "face the strange... changes." Which I kind of prefer. However, "strain" is also somewhat applicable.

You see, my kids go back to school next week. Both of them. As in, my daughter is now a kindergartner and will be attending full-day kindergarten. And I am now a woman 11 years out of the working world faced with the conundrum of what to do next.

I've never been very career-driven. This surprises most people, since I was, in what feels like a previous life-time, a doctoral student in medieval history and intended to become a professor. But not because I wanted the "career" - mostly because I liked history, and had always excelled in school, so why not keep doing something I'd been good at?

Would I have been good at it? Probably. Would I do well in a full-time, career-track job? Maybe. But I kind of like jobs that I can leave behind at the end of the day. Jobs where someone else tells me what to do, and I do it competently and usually get recognized for that. (Neither of those describes motherhood, so no, I don't know quite how I ended up as an at-home mom). I always jokingly say I don't wear my current mom/wife/housekeeper hat particularly well, why would I want to add another hat?

But it's kind of true: if I have to go to work, I want something I can do well but not focus exclusively on, so that when I'm home I can be with my family and focus on them. I guess this comes from knowing two things about myself: 1) When I'm focused on something, I want to focus on it pretty much to the exclusion of about everything else, and 2) Anxiety can keep me from wanting to do things in which I could fail spectacularly. I didn't say those were good or bad things - they're just realities about my wiring.

I want to write. I continually say I want to write. I've even not only been THINKING about potential story lines, but have actually written some ideas down. And yet, I've gone no further. Partly because it's hard to write in 20 minute blips, and partly out of fear of... something. Failure? Rejection? Success? Don't know.

I want to sell things online. I can do it from home. I seem to be good at it. I can make my own hours. And I can contribute at least somewhat to the family coffers. Not much, but something. Will it pan out? Will it be worth it? I don't know.

I want to clean out and organize my house and get all those projects done I've been putting off while home with the kids. How much of this will happen? I don't know.

It feels bizarre to realize that a week from today my kids will be in school for 7 hours and I will be at liberty to decide how I spend all those hours. That are "free". That are "all in a row." I'm excited! But I'm nervous, too.

Time to go find that David Bowie song.

Happy Anniversary, Baby...

Brett and I got married twelve years ago today, in the chapel on the University of Virginia campus. Since our ceremony took place at 8 in the evening, we opted to do pictures beforehand, and took most of them in front of the UVa Rotunda.

Today, to honor 12 years together, we took the kids on a spur-of-the-moment trip to Charlottesville to show them where mom and dad got married. While the kids enjoyed the trip, it was of course less meaningful for them than it was for me.

Going back to UVa feels so poignant. It's where I met my husband. It's where we dated and hung out for 2 years. It's where I went through some of the worst self-doubt and anxiety in my life. It's where I had some of the best times of my life.

Seeing all the college students around brought back pangs for those times; wishing, even if briefly, to be back in those days of reading in the library and hanging out with friends and books at the local coffee shops. In some ways I was so much freer then, in spite of the academic stress. I just didn't know it.

Am I O.K. with my decision not to finish my PhD? Yes, I am. I truly believe I'm happier now than I would have been trying to finish something that I wasn't totally invested in anymore. I'm happy I chose my relationship with Brett and chose starting a family over academe.

But today, just for a little while, I wished I were back there. At the same time, I appreciated the wonder of being there today with my children. Our children. People who didn't exist 12 years ago today.

When I wonder what my life's work is, I guess that's the biggest part of it - my kids. Sure, I find parenting tough. I often think I don't handle it nearly as well as many other parents do, often think I could and should be such a better mom. But I love my kids. It was a joy to be able to show them where I met and fell in love with their daddy. Even if they didn't really give a fig, and just wanted to run around in the Rotunda. And that was O.K. with me.

Blog Blog Blog

Gee whiz, I haven't been here in a while. And the thing is, I really want to blog. Not for you. For me. O.K., a little for you - whoever you are - because a blog without an audience is really just a diary, and if I want a pure diary experience I ought not post online.

Still, what gives? I don't know. I feel I lack focus here, but who says I need focus anyway?

Here is what I'm busy with and may soon blog about:

1. Genealogy - I've always WANTED to work on my family history, but now I've actually started to.
2. eBay & online selling - I've fallen in love with the idea of being able to do this again (I was an active seller for a few years before Ellie was born) - to earn a little extra money for the family without having to commit to a job outside the home (and outside our own schedule), while also using skills I actually really enjoy using - shopping! bargain hunting! photography! writing copy! using the computer! printing labels and mailing things! (Yes, I really do enjoy that...) I even created my own logo - whee haw!
3. Trying to figure out what else to do with life now that both of my kids are about to be in school full-time.
4. Spending time with said kids, encouraging them to be more active and in general trying to "play" more. I don't "play" well, but I'm working on it some.
5. Working out. Actually, I'm in a lull, far off my energetic pace of the spring. It will come back - it HAS to come back. But summers are always hard for me in terms of motivation - it's just too darn hot for me to want to sweat ON PURPOSE.
6. Traveling - AWESOME trip to Kansas and Iowa to see family this summer. Great trip to the New Jersey shore (excepting the first few days, in which I was seriously feverish). Makes me realize how much I miss family.

So that's it. My quest for blog focus and blog perseverance continues. Not that anybody besides me cares. Bwah ha ha.

Oh, Blogger, Where Art Thou?

You know, blogging really seems like it would be something right up my alley. I love to write. I love computers. I love things that look pretty and organized and include words. I even like the physical act of typing. So why am I not a more active blogger?

Well, there's Facebook: I get on the computer with the intention of completing various tasks (answer those e-mails, write that packing list, check on airline tickets) and end up updating my status. Often. And reading my "newsfeed." Next thing I know, it's time to make dinner, or help the kids, or clean up cat puke, or what-have-you, and all those things I intended to, including perhaps drafting a wise and witty blog entry, just don't seem to happen.

Also, there's focus. As in, lack of. What is the purpose of my blog? Maybe I need to focus on something. Successful bloggers seem to have a basic premise, a predominant theme which laces the whole blog together. Mine is... well.... me. And while navel-gazing may be of interest to me, even I, in my myopic ways, know that that isn't enough of a reason to blog.

So I don't know. Should I make this a Blog With A Purpose? Or just occasionally pop in willy-nilly and record the funny quips my kids say, and the occasional angst session I need to get out?

I don't know. But it was fun being here a few minutes, all the same.

Sometimes Funny Is A Four-Letter Word

Earlier this week Ellie was singing a Lady Gaga song (Lady Gaga has become quite popular in this house and is heard at various times of day throughout the day).

"I'm a fwee biwtch," she sang out.
"Ellie, that's not a very nice word, so even though she sings it, I don't want you to say it," I told her.
"What word?" asked Jeff.
"Oh, the free part," I tried to say nonchalantly.
"What, I'm a free bench?" he asked again, obviously puzzled as to what was bad about a bench.
"No, Jeff, not bench - BITCH!" yelled Ellie.

So much for not saying it.

Then today I was trying to help Jefferson work out a conflict with a friend. The friend had gone home temporarily, and Jeff was very upset by what had happened. I suggested to him he view it from the friend's point of view - if that friend did to Jeff what Jeff had done to that friend, how would Jeff feel? "I'd feel like calling him the S-Word!" he proclaimed. Just as I was mildly freaking out that apparently my son knows words I didn't think he knew, he continued, "Whatever the S-Word is. I don't know."

Bwah ha ha!

Of Mice And Me...

"A ship in the harbor is safe. But that's not what ships are built for." - Anonymous

I like safety. I do. One of the highest compliments I can say about my husband is he makes me feel safe in a way that no one else does. 

The world is rather scary to me. I am anxiety-prone, so I'm sure a lot of those "eek" feelings are related to my brain chemistry. Especially when I talk to others and realize not everyone feels the way I do - that kind of general fearful feeling I carry around with me most of the time apparently is not something everyone else has. 

But when it is O.K. to play it safe and when is it not? If I prefer safety, is it all right not to venture too far out of my comfort zone, or is that a sign it's even more important for me to fly from the nest? 

Why this? Why now? Because next year my daughter will be in kindergarten. And I'm left staring at the question, "What now?" Do I go back to work? If so, what do I want to do? If not, why not?

There is a big part of me that would love to stay home - to see how it goes, to see whether or not it's beneficial to the family, to see if I can finally get those projects done I've been putting off for years. My husband is supportive of whatever choice I make. I have a choice. I'm very lucky in that. But there's a little part of me that knows that desire to stay home is related to or stems from that desire to stay safe. Life is familiar here, and not too terribly risky.

But it is a valid reason to maintain the status quo? I feel like I ought to challenge that, like I ought to push myself. But why? Because of society's expectations? Because of other people's expectations? Or because that's the best way for me to grow? 

Is it? 

Maybe the best way for me to grow is to bloom where I've been planted. Stay at home and figure out who I am now. Write. Work on self. Unless my blossoms are really ostriches sticking their heads in the sand (how's that for a bizarre mixed idiom?). 

 

The Disney Princess Indoctrination Effect

Last night at dinner Ellie asked me who my dad was. The conversation went like this:

Ellie: "Mom, who's your dad?"
Me: "Well, Grandpa Alan is my stepdad. My mom married him when I was 17. But my real dad is Don - he lives out in Arizona. He and my mom decided not to be married anymore when I was 5."
Jeff: "Yeah, it's called divorce."
Ellie, aghast: "WHAT? You can't change your MIND!"

Brett and I tried very hard to control our laughter. And failed. "At least we know the Disney Princess indoctrination is working," Brett quipped.

Indeed.