chagrin

lately, not in great depth or anything, i've been feeling a little conflicted. it reminds me a little of something rach was writing about recently about having a dream for doing something different with her life in the future and (forgive me if i don't explain this very well, rach) the discomfort she feels with not being able to pursue her passion now while simultaneously living out another passion (raising her children).

i tried to talking to brendan about this just now, but it didn't go very well because i can't sort out my feelings very well thru talking and i wasn't making any sense. plus he couldn't relate. 

i feel really torn when i think about my desires for the future. this week i have to set my 2012 objectives with emma, while at the same time provide a summary of where i want my career to go. i like my job, i like how it's evolved in the last 8 years and i like where it seems to be going, but it's not all i want in life. 

i don't really know how to explain this, so i have a strange analogy... when i was little for one reason or another (i can't remember the specifics) i had $30. over a short period of time i kept coming across options of things to buy and ways of spending that money. i remember being at a book store with my mom asking if i could by something and she said i didn't have any money with me (i was about seven years old) and i said to her "i have money at home". before i knew it i'd spent all of my money. no matter what i came across i kept thinking i had $30, but slowly i whittled it away and in the end didn't really have anything to show for it. 

i had difficulty keeping my spending in context. to remember that i didn't have an endless supply of $30 and that i couldn't simultaneously buy a bookmark and an candy without depleting my savings. 

so how does this relate? i have difficulty with the spacial reality of the future. it's not that i forget that i don't have an endless supply of time, but rather that i can't spend my time two different ways. there is only 24 hours in a day and those hours can only be spent one way at a time.

rach recently also wrote a blog entry about homeschooling. while i've never seen my self as a homeschooler she wrote about it in such a lovely way that it inspired a desire to go down that avenue. but the reality is that i can't both have a fulfilling full-time career and a stay-at-home mom who teaches her children full time. it makes me feel so frustrated that my career is not flexible (like some women who's hours can be cut back) and that it's not financially viable. i realize that someday brendan will be employed, but we don't know what that will look like. who knows, life might surprise us, but for right now i've got to go with the facts as they are and not with what they could be in a surprisingly good best-case scenario. besides, it's really not about brendan at all. it's about the choice that i will have to make between work and mothering (not like this is even remotely in the near future - we don't plan to have kids before late 2014) and the pressure i feel from both myself and my environment. i know a shockingly low number of full-time working moms. i find sarah really inspiring and i often think of her as a good example of work-life balance. but i envy her that her mom provides her full-time childcare and i don't think that's an option for me. i'm sure that nancy would LOVE to provide us with childcare but she'd still be far from retirement by the time we have kids that that wouldn't be an option. so anyways, i do feel a lot of social pressure from my surroundings and feel i will come up short by appearing to choose my career over my family. i do have friends, at least one in particular, who voluntarily choose to live below the poverty line so they can full-time parent their children. will i seem materialistic or money-driven if we chose to not make that sacrifice? 

man, that was a bit of a tangent because this isn't even solely about having kids. being here in cleveland has made me think about what it would be like if we picked up and moved here, or any other place for that matter. what life are we missing out on by remaining in the city we grew up in? i'd love to have a job downtown that i could walk to, or totally change careers, or grow all my own produce, or take up surfing, or have really big and wild hair. maybe some awesome tat-sleeves.

i dunno. to me this seems like the same-old same-old problem i've always had. maybe it smacks of 'grass is always greener'. i suppose we'll need to thoughtfully and prayerfully make decisions as we face them and trust that they are the best choices for the circumstances we're in. it's just the thought of looking back and regretting the choices i make is too much for me to stomach. i've only got one shot at it and it makes me ill to think i may wish i'd done things differently. 

anyways, i think that's it. i feel better now. turns out i didn't even need to share this with b at all to feel better about it. i should go. it's getting late and this isn't how i imagined spending my last evening in cleveland. that said... i don't regret it ;)

i've got money in my pockets, 
i like the color of my hair. 
i've got a friend who loves me, 

got a house, i've got a car.