Sunday, September 14, 2008

Ears, paths and a sore tailbone

I spent all weekend long sitting in a chair in a dark, freezing cold hotel conference room listening to a speaker talk about balance, dizziness, the inner ear and every kind of malady imaginable that can impact a person's balance. Very helpful content, a highly competent and even entertaining speaker, and something I have to know about and deal with every time I work at the hospital. It still didn't take away the fact that the whole weekend was blown, it cost me $400 and my tailbone is killing me. But hopefully I'm better prepared to help people. Time will tell.

This hiatus from working full time to stay home and raise three kids has been every single bit worth it and a choice I would make again and again if I had to. I like being able to keep my hand in what I was trained to do and the time off has uncovered other hidden gems like the sudden urge to knit when I was pregnant the second time and how I taught myself. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd be knitting and selling what I design and make.

But the combination of both plus the introduction of other interests such as writing, yoga and just wellness in general does nothing but confuse me. I feel like I'm standing in the middle of a grocery store and don't know which aisle to go down. Like I didn't bring my list and so have no idea what I even need to bring home.

This is the crossroads I somehow knew I'd come to when my kids all were in school full-time. I've been wondering all this while what my life would look like at that point and how I'd end up filling my days. So this last year of preschool is decision-making time, or at least that's what I seem to be pressuring myself with lately. And maybe that's just the thing that's making me feel all squirmy inside. Maybe it's the pressure alone that I put on myself to have it all worked out. To know ahead of time what every little thing will look like and where the college tuition will come from and how we'll have another bedroom and bathroom when the kids are teenagers and when we'll get chickens and so on and so on.

Maybe, just maybe, if I take each day as it comes, all these things will sort themselves out. Huh. A novel thought. I think I just had a breakthrough.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I remember this overwhelming feeling of my identity shifting once they were no longer babies. I'm at that same spot in the road- here's my wish that we both find our paths with as much peace as possible.