Be Careful What You Wish For

Have you ever gotten exactly what you wished for, and then wonder why you wanted it in the first place? The reason I haven't blogged AT ALL in the last 5 months is because I got a job. A full time job. Something just for me, so I could feel fulfilled. Yay me! I also now have guilt, stress, exhaustion and a longing for the way things were.

Until recently I had not worked full time since I becoming a mother, except for when I was a nanny and took my oldest son to work with me. Since then I have worked as a server and bartender,  and I have been a real estate agent for a few different local firms. I am fortunate enough to have a husband who is willing to stay home with the kids while I work nights and weekends. He does a good share of the household chores and he does most of the cooking. I really can't complain. But I did.

As much as I loved being home with my kids, I didn't feel like my work was fulfilling to me personally. I felt unchallenged intellectually, and felt my chances of using the education that my parents paid for were slipping away with each passing day.  In addition, as the kids got older, and we had more of them, I started to resent having to share my nights and weekends with work obligations. It was necessary for me to be earning something, but I didn't want to give up my family time to do it. So my solution was to put my youngest son in daycare and get a full time day job. I wanted to prove (mostly to myself) that I was more than "just a mom" with a sewing machine, a crazy sweet tooth and a blog. I needed to show the world that I had more to offer and I could do it between the hours of 9am and 5pm, so my family time would be uninterrupted.

So about 6 months ago I applied for a job with a small staffing agency. The owner saw something in me that she could work with and she ended up offering me the Staffing Coordinator position with her company. She said I would be difficult to "sell" to her clients because I had never had a full-time office job, but I had a lot of marketable and translatable skills that she could utilize and enhance upon. I was thrilled. Ecstatic even! Finally, somebody saw me as something other than a wife, mother, or caretaker.

I began my job in June and by July I had already received a raise. By August I was on the fast track to becoming a senior recruiter and the head of business development. I felt like a million bucks! I never saw coming what happened next.

On the way home from work one day I received a phone call that my mother was in the hospital. Three weeks later, and on my son's 3rd birthday, she died. It.was.awful. I'll save the details for another time, but suffice it to say that after losing 2 parents in 4 years, I was very overwhelmed with grief. I managed to suppress that grief by focusing on my job, and all of the new obligations that my mother's death bestowed upon me. But instead of giving me comfort, my job has done nothing but cause me more stress. I am just trading one emotion for another.

It's amazing how the death of a loved one causes us to reorganize our priorities. All of a sudden, my need to feel fulfilled seems so petty compared to the needs of my family. I had everything that I (previously) wanted, but I was no longer happy! I probably should have quit my job immediately when my mother got sick, but hind sight is always 20/20, right?! I didn't quit right then for a number of reasons, but mainly it was because I'm a chicken and I hate confrontation.  It's also because I have been trained and groomed more than any person in my position before me. I am literally half of our staff, and my boss has come to rely on me heavily.

It was so hard to tell her that I needed to leave, but I finally did it. It was a huge weight lifted from my shoulders! My last day is December 16th and I am looking forward to spending more time with my friends and family, and giving back through volunteering!

Curve Balls

Life has thrown me a couple of curve balls lately, and I feel like I need to write about it to help me process. What I had planned for the next few years is now up in the air. My plan was to start school in the fall to get my Surgical Technician certification. I was going to start working full time next year in the fall, and life would continue with us as a family of 5. Now I'm not sure that school is an option this year, or if we will someday be a family of 6.

So here is what happened...I went to take my math placement test at the community college that I planned to attend. I aced the test and everything was good, until the advisor told me that I would need to take anatomy and physiology BEFORE I could start the surg. tech program. According to their website A & P is part of the first semester of classes. I had no idea I would need that before I would be admitted! They only start classes for this program in the fall, so she said that I would be looking at fall 2010 to get started. Have I mentioned that that wasn't part of the plan? She said that I could add my name to the applicant "pool" but that they only take about 16 or so students out of about 30 and most of them will have already had A & P, putting me farther down on the list. I'm just so frustrated! I thought I had it all planned out and now I don't know what to do. I'm taking a CNA class starting in April, so hopefully I can get a weekend job with that until I start school...

My second curve ball? My husband has said that he would not get snipped if I really want another baby. He said we could revisit the idea when the baby is about 18 months. Instead of jumping for joy though, I'm kind of torn. As much as I want another baby, I had a plan!!! Another baby doesn't fit into that plan. I can't afford to have 2 kids in daycare, so going to school wouldn't be worth it. If I found a job as a CNA on the weekends that I really enjoyed, I could do that with 2 kids, but I think my husband would kill me! I don't think he would be okay staying at home with 4 kids for 12 hours at a time, especially when the youngest would be an infant.

I had finally accepted that our family was complete, and for good reason, and now I just don't know. I know that there are no guarantees in life, and even if we decided to have another one, we would have to do IVF again. It worked once, but what if it didn't work the next time? What if we had a baby with special needs? But what if we could finally have a girl? Or a boy who actually looked like me? I love being pregnant, and I would love to have another baby, but I'm not sure it is the right thing to do. Besides, he just said we would table the discussion until the baby is 18 months old. He didn't say he would agree to it.

So now I need a new plan...but it looks like that plan is going to have to be flexible. I have a lot of thinking to do.