Aspirations and Fear

I realized this week—to my surprise and confusion—that I still aspire. Not the breathing-in kind of aspiring. The hoping-to-achieve kind.

It’s been nearly eight (!) years since my first child was born, and five years (!!) since I left graduate school and payroll work. Only one of my three kids is in school right now. I have two-and-a-half years to get all three of them there. But that point is suddenly close enough that I can see the reality of it. Close enough that all of those things I said I might do when all three kids are in school are now barrelling toward me more quickly than I expected.

I thought I’d be ready for this. The decision to leave grad school and paid work was gut-wrenching for me. I knew, though, that my children would only be small for so long, and it was important to me to be their primary caregiver through their earliest years. And that one day they would go to school, and at that point I would figure out some other professional me to be.

As I see that point coming closer, I find myself unready. Unsteady. Terrified. And exhilerated with the possibilities.

Some of you might say it’s the anxiety about the babies growing up. And there is some of that of course. But I trust them, and while I will sigh nostalgically over their baby selves, I also know that their growing selves will be just as interesting and sigh-worthy.

No, the anxiety and excitement and confusion is about me. About my self-identity. The caring for my very small children is important to me. I would not have left grad school if I didn’t feel that the care of their early selves was the most important work I could do for them. Them going to school, though, provides me with the time to begin to rebuild my individual identity, the one that is separate from my children. It is very unlikely to be the same me that I was before I was a mama, though there are still big chunks of that fierce girl (a feminist intellectual, determined to fight The Man, and make new knowledge) left in me. It is very unlikely to be completely disentangled from the mama-me either. I AM someone’s mama now.

How will those bits of fierce girl and fierce mama fit together? And what other pieces will fit in there? Who will I be and what will I do?

For a full 24 hours this week I decided that I wanted to get an Accounting Degree and become a CPA. This seemed like a very reasonable thing to want to be. I would study for a few years, and be virtually assured a steady job with steady pay that would allow me to support my family in the event of catastrophe, or to allow my husband to take a turn away from the payroll as the before-and-after-school parent.

Ha.

I don’t really want to be an Accountant (though, seriously, all of the numbers and the puzzle of making them make sense does seriously appeal to that hyper-organized, A-personality, keener part of me). I want to be a writer. But boy oh boy is that scary.

Look, if I became an Accountant, I’d have to put in the work (and the money) to be a student for a few years, but at the end of it I have no reason to doubt that I’d get a reasonable job. To become a writer, I’ll likely have to put in some hard work for a few years, producing readable, publishable material, but there is no virtual guarantee at the end. The work might suck. Or the market might be resistant. From what I hear the publishing industry is hard. This lot-of-work-for-no-guaranteed-return is scary. Make-me-think-about-Accounting scary. Shake-in-my-boots-and-make-me-want-to-overhyphenate-everything scary.

Two trusted people poked me just the right way at just the right time. I remembered that scary isn’t always bad. If I wanted to avoid the unexpected and the difficult, I’d never have become a parent. If I wanted an opportunity to CREATE (which, as you might notice, I love to do) anything like new knowledge or understanding, I could do it with writing. If I wanted to try to pick up and rail against The Man, I could do it with writing. I can write in the space between packing the kids off to school and greeting them with a snack. I could write and find a balance point between the two.

While I’m not a big one for doing things to please other people, it did help, this week, to have two people point out to me in their own unique ways, that they do want to read what I write. That they do want me to give it my best shot. And that no decision has to be made RIGHT NOW. I still have a little time.

But I think I’ve already decided. And here it goes. One baby step at a time. I will try to add Professional Writer to my list of personal descriptors.

Deep Breath.

*****
P.S. Today R and C were involved in an incident that resulted in a spectacular head bonk for C. He has a goose egg on his forehead the size of Manhattan Island, otherwise he is ok. We’ll check on him a few times tonight. In the moment of the trauma, I acted exactly as I had to. Did all of the things I was supposed to do at the right times. Soothing, icing, hugging, checking pupils, and asking the right questions. I really am sure that he’ll be fine. But the aftermath leaves me wrung out, on the weepy side, and with muscles shivering with fatigue and emotion. Seriously, if I can convince an injured four-year-old to hold the ice pack to his swollen head in spite of the searing pain, surely writing won’t be so hard. ;)