Uncharted

As we drove back downtown after getting our teen-vampire-drama movie fix, my friend M asked me, “What do you want to do when the kids go to school?” I think I spent a good five minutes dancing around the question before finally admitting that I don’t know.

This is the type of question that really throws me for a loop. Right now as I write, my toddler old is squatting and grunting in front of me as he takes his morning constitution, and the older one is playing with an empty Speyburn can.. loudly. I can’t really picture my life differently, or rather I don’t want to. It saddens me to think of a completely quiet house every weekday morning, and while on some days I’d jump at the prospect, for now, it makes me feel lost.

I used to have life charted out five years down the road. I had goals and ambitions. However, as soon as kids entered the picture, and the window of childbearing years was opened, I saw no point in making plans. They were my plan. For the first time, I don’t know where I’m headed, and there isn’t something I’m desperate to accomplish. It makes me very uneasy. It’s is very strange spending 20+ years being educated and trained to think and plan in terms of career, with the every foreboding question “What do you want to be when you grow up?” hanging over your head, only to hit thirty, realize you are grown up and quite content being, well, nothing that fits the textbook of what you were trained to be.

Future possibilities always lie ahead. I’ve kept my foot in the door of academia, and I’ve maintained several hobbies that I could see diving deeper into, time allowing. But the rub is, I don’t know what I’d want to do. Most likely by the time kids are off to school, if by luck or accident we end up with another baby, I’ll be approaching forty. I imagine that over the next decade so much will change.

When I do allow myself to dream, I picture myself helping people start gardens. I envision continuing pottery. I don’t see myself in an office. I’ve never been able to picture that. I see myself mentoring women in the church. I want many many grand babies. I want to build things. I don’t see where a job title fits in with all this.