Birthday!
Today I turn 38. I have made some decisions, as one does sometimes when the year turns to another year.
I am a grownup. I am closer to middle age than youth, I have a mortgage and kids, I have had a driver's license for over 10 years (look I got a late start there). I have a Master's degree, and I was once on the path to having some professional clout, although I stepped off it to raise the kiddos.
I get mistaken for a 25 year old a lot, and honestly it bugs the snot out of me. No one ever lets me just feel annoyed about that one, I get a lot of "oh nice problem to have, haha!" kind of reactions, but hear me out. Since I was little, I've wanted nothing more than for people to take me seriously. I have craved influence and gravitas. I wanted to be an academic for a long time, and while I decided that wasn't the career for me, I still want a lot of what it represents - intellectual community, influence, respect.
When I stepped off the professional path - very willingly, I believe that my kids deserve a full time stay at home parent - I let go of nearly everything that I thought made me "me." I embraced what was available - building a community, investing my time and attention in my family, finding meaning in domestic duties, kids and meals and dishes (don't laugh and don't judge me, you either find meaning in it or you go insane). And I built a business and a life as an artisan, which is a job you can have while sleep deprived and often interrupted, and without a babysitter to facilitate the leaving of the house.
With that came a sort of second youth, the 20s I wished I'd had in some ways. I never had a natural hair colour, I wore any damn thing I pleased, I kept the scheduled that suited me and had nothing to do with rush hour or when the exchange opens in Tokyo (there's an exchange in Tokyo, right? I just pulled that one out of my ass). I could usually be found in the local park, wearing my Birkenstocks and pigtails (look it seemed like a good idea at the time) and maybe my hand-screened Dr. Who tee shirt that I bought off Etsy.
But I get mistaken for a 25 year old, and you know? I'm not one.
I'm trying to go back to work (part time, so Kiddo The Younger doesn't have to be in preschool more than half-days). I want my education to matter again, and I want to command a certain influence. I want clothes that fit and befit my age, I don't want to fall into the super-perky youth-inflected speech patterns that everyone seems to be adopting these days online and in real life. I have made no real friends among the artisans and crafters that I've spent so much time with, and I've made only a couple among the other moms in my sphere. I need to find my right people, plant my feet fully in the life I want, not the temporary exigency that sprang up when my options were limited.
So that's what I'm doing. I have applied for jobs (doing what I used to do, which I loved and wouldn't have left except that I had a baby and then moved across the country), but it doesn't look good for September, and that's the most likely time to get one of these jobs. But I have applied, and I will continue to apply, and also figure out what stepping-stone work I could do to make the applications stronger.
If I don't get a job, I am going to start writing again. It might be crap, or it might be fanfic, or it might be mediocre and never get better, and I might never ever get so much as a short story published. The outcome isn't entirely the point anymore. The point is that I spend too much time reading and thinking, hey writing is great I bet I have stories to tell, I walk through my life and I think that I have things to share with people, and fiction is better for the world than blogging (IMO). And at a certain point - like, say, when one wakes up and realizes that one is a grown up and should act like one - you have to stop musing and start doing.
I am a grownup. I am closer to middle age than youth, I have a mortgage and kids, I have had a driver's license for over 10 years (look I got a late start there). I have a Master's degree, and I was once on the path to having some professional clout, although I stepped off it to raise the kiddos.
I get mistaken for a 25 year old a lot, and honestly it bugs the snot out of me. No one ever lets me just feel annoyed about that one, I get a lot of "oh nice problem to have, haha!" kind of reactions, but hear me out. Since I was little, I've wanted nothing more than for people to take me seriously. I have craved influence and gravitas. I wanted to be an academic for a long time, and while I decided that wasn't the career for me, I still want a lot of what it represents - intellectual community, influence, respect.
When I stepped off the professional path - very willingly, I believe that my kids deserve a full time stay at home parent - I let go of nearly everything that I thought made me "me." I embraced what was available - building a community, investing my time and attention in my family, finding meaning in domestic duties, kids and meals and dishes (don't laugh and don't judge me, you either find meaning in it or you go insane). And I built a business and a life as an artisan, which is a job you can have while sleep deprived and often interrupted, and without a babysitter to facilitate the leaving of the house.
With that came a sort of second youth, the 20s I wished I'd had in some ways. I never had a natural hair colour, I wore any damn thing I pleased, I kept the scheduled that suited me and had nothing to do with rush hour or when the exchange opens in Tokyo (there's an exchange in Tokyo, right? I just pulled that one out of my ass). I could usually be found in the local park, wearing my Birkenstocks and pigtails (look it seemed like a good idea at the time) and maybe my hand-screened Dr. Who tee shirt that I bought off Etsy.
But I get mistaken for a 25 year old, and you know? I'm not one.
I'm trying to go back to work (part time, so Kiddo The Younger doesn't have to be in preschool more than half-days). I want my education to matter again, and I want to command a certain influence. I want clothes that fit and befit my age, I don't want to fall into the super-perky youth-inflected speech patterns that everyone seems to be adopting these days online and in real life. I have made no real friends among the artisans and crafters that I've spent so much time with, and I've made only a couple among the other moms in my sphere. I need to find my right people, plant my feet fully in the life I want, not the temporary exigency that sprang up when my options were limited.
So that's what I'm doing. I have applied for jobs (doing what I used to do, which I loved and wouldn't have left except that I had a baby and then moved across the country), but it doesn't look good for September, and that's the most likely time to get one of these jobs. But I have applied, and I will continue to apply, and also figure out what stepping-stone work I could do to make the applications stronger.
If I don't get a job, I am going to start writing again. It might be crap, or it might be fanfic, or it might be mediocre and never get better, and I might never ever get so much as a short story published. The outcome isn't entirely the point anymore. The point is that I spend too much time reading and thinking, hey writing is great I bet I have stories to tell, I walk through my life and I think that I have things to share with people, and fiction is better for the world than blogging (IMO). And at a certain point - like, say, when one wakes up and realizes that one is a grown up and should act like one - you have to stop musing and start doing.