So I have some good news, I seem to have found a job. Yes, a job, an actual job, where I leave my house and interact with people while holding sharp objects. I'm excited, I really am.
But...
Yes, there's a "But", there's a big part of me that doesn't want it. The reason is one that seems to be an unusual one for women my age.
I want to be a mom.
I've always assumed that someday I'd settle down and do the whole raising a family thing, in that way that I think most everybody does. A couple years ago I was a little surprised to find that when I had a bad day at work (you know, the kind that leaves you miserable, feeling like you want to cry, and wondering why you even bother) I would come home and usually wind up in my mom's room, snuggled up with her and letting the tears come when they needed. And I would wish that that was my job. To be the one doing the comforting and the loving on. To have the arms whose comforting hold is sought out on bad days.
That was as much as I really thought about the reality of having children for a little while. At that age the thought of having a child at that moment felt like the end of all things.
September came last year and we got married and moved out of state. We didn't get a honeymoon unless you count running around the week after our wedding to DMVs, AAA, and Social Security offices making sure all papers were filed to change my name before we left the state. We left New England and just were happy to be together after spending the majority of the past year and a half a continent, and then some, apart. I managed to leave my home and family without much of a breakdown. Ironically to this story, the night before our departure I got a notification that my birth control prescription was due for pick up. I had been feverishly packing all of my last minute things and our parents were helping us stuff my little Impreza full to the brim with most of our earthly belongings. Emotions were just a little high, and I was getting flustered and seemed a little quiet.
I remember pulling back into my parents driveway and my wonderful husband let the car idle for a few minutes, checking in to see how I was doing. And that's when I lost it. I was hit with waves of sobs, gasping for breath, there was just nothing I could do but let it all out. I had pushed all the thoughts and emotions way into a back corner, claiming I was excited and ready to leave, refusing to really deal with any of this. Like a champ, G sat next to me, holding me as I ugly cried and blabbered about how much I was gonna miss home and how I was scared. He even told me that I didn't have to leave if I didn't want to. At that I almost choked with the laugh that tried to make it's way out.
The next morning we took off with mostly dry eyes, ready for the next chapter.
I'd be lying if I said that it was totally easy to adjust to life down here. Now I've come to feel like we have stumbled upon a little bit of a treasure. I can see the waves rolling to meet the sand as I stand at my kitchen window. Our family grew to include three adorable and high energy fur babies. I didn't look for work right away, wanting a little mental break from moving halfway down the coast and planning a wedding for the past 10 months, and so I have become very comfortable being home with the crazy animals doing house-things. Never in a million years when I was just a few years younger would I have imagined enjoying this.
And yet, the image of holding a child continued to tug at me. A thought not unfamiliar, but growing more frequent and strong, until I was being kept up at night with a heart swelling to the brim with emotions just thinking about it.
With the couples we know down here it feels as if G and I aren't on the same page. Most are 21 and not quite ready to start the whole "growing a family" segment, understandable. There are some a little closer to our age, but it just doesn't seem to be on their radar at the moment.
So, we decided to maybe start trying to expand our little family and add another bipedal member to our ranks. Of course within weeks of making this decision, a job opportunity lands right in my lap. My heart stopped when I heard the message left for me, and all at once my heart felt like it was going to take off in flight, my breath couldn't seem to catch, I felt nauseous and lightheaded and needed to sit down and hug a fluffy animal while talking some calm into myself.
I knew I'd be stupid to not give it a try, but all my brain threw at me were reasons why I shouldn't. One prevalent thought, what if I get pregnant? That gives them like only 9 months and then poof. I'm gone, that is if I have a pregnancy easy enough to stand all day and do hair. And then another thought, does this mean we have to give up on trying now? I didn't realize how disappointed I would be considering this.
I didn't think that, at nearly 25, I would look at pictures of acquaintances with their children and ache to have what they have. To find myself in a bistro faced with a crying infant and want to snatch it out of its baby sitter's arms to comfort, bounce, and coo it back to a peaceful sleep. To cry when a heartfelt parenting commercial comes up. To feel indignant when people tell me they feel we are too young to start a family.
It terrifies me, but that's where I'm at right now. I smile to myself when I think about nights reading aloud, sharing my favorite stories and hoping my kids get sucked so deeply into these spectacular worlds that I love so much that they long for them to be as real as I do. To share disney music and old school VHS tapes with them. To indoctrinate them with our favorite music, hoping that someday I'll look at my backseat where my 3 year old is bumbling through twenty-one pilots lyrics, or humming one of flea's baselines perfectly. I long to be the reason they laugh so uncontrollably that they start to hiccup, or the one they run to because they're crying and mama can always make it better.
I have no doubt that I was given a gift of art in hairdressing, but deep down, I feel like I was put on this earth to give the gift of physical, spiritual, emotional, and mental nourishment to people, (and maybe particularly ones that look kinda like me)
Maybe I am crazy. But I don't care. You can call me crazy when you're almost 60 and still have an 18year old at home while I've been empty nested and world traveling with my husband for the past 10-13 years ;)
But...
Yes, there's a "But", there's a big part of me that doesn't want it. The reason is one that seems to be an unusual one for women my age.
I want to be a mom.
I've always assumed that someday I'd settle down and do the whole raising a family thing, in that way that I think most everybody does. A couple years ago I was a little surprised to find that when I had a bad day at work (you know, the kind that leaves you miserable, feeling like you want to cry, and wondering why you even bother) I would come home and usually wind up in my mom's room, snuggled up with her and letting the tears come when they needed. And I would wish that that was my job. To be the one doing the comforting and the loving on. To have the arms whose comforting hold is sought out on bad days.
That was as much as I really thought about the reality of having children for a little while. At that age the thought of having a child at that moment felt like the end of all things.
September came last year and we got married and moved out of state. We didn't get a honeymoon unless you count running around the week after our wedding to DMVs, AAA, and Social Security offices making sure all papers were filed to change my name before we left the state. We left New England and just were happy to be together after spending the majority of the past year and a half a continent, and then some, apart. I managed to leave my home and family without much of a breakdown. Ironically to this story, the night before our departure I got a notification that my birth control prescription was due for pick up. I had been feverishly packing all of my last minute things and our parents were helping us stuff my little Impreza full to the brim with most of our earthly belongings. Emotions were just a little high, and I was getting flustered and seemed a little quiet.
I remember pulling back into my parents driveway and my wonderful husband let the car idle for a few minutes, checking in to see how I was doing. And that's when I lost it. I was hit with waves of sobs, gasping for breath, there was just nothing I could do but let it all out. I had pushed all the thoughts and emotions way into a back corner, claiming I was excited and ready to leave, refusing to really deal with any of this. Like a champ, G sat next to me, holding me as I ugly cried and blabbered about how much I was gonna miss home and how I was scared. He even told me that I didn't have to leave if I didn't want to. At that I almost choked with the laugh that tried to make it's way out.
The next morning we took off with mostly dry eyes, ready for the next chapter.
I'd be lying if I said that it was totally easy to adjust to life down here. Now I've come to feel like we have stumbled upon a little bit of a treasure. I can see the waves rolling to meet the sand as I stand at my kitchen window. Our family grew to include three adorable and high energy fur babies. I didn't look for work right away, wanting a little mental break from moving halfway down the coast and planning a wedding for the past 10 months, and so I have become very comfortable being home with the crazy animals doing house-things. Never in a million years when I was just a few years younger would I have imagined enjoying this.
And yet, the image of holding a child continued to tug at me. A thought not unfamiliar, but growing more frequent and strong, until I was being kept up at night with a heart swelling to the brim with emotions just thinking about it.
With the couples we know down here it feels as if G and I aren't on the same page. Most are 21 and not quite ready to start the whole "growing a family" segment, understandable. There are some a little closer to our age, but it just doesn't seem to be on their radar at the moment.
So, we decided to maybe start trying to expand our little family and add another bipedal member to our ranks. Of course within weeks of making this decision, a job opportunity lands right in my lap. My heart stopped when I heard the message left for me, and all at once my heart felt like it was going to take off in flight, my breath couldn't seem to catch, I felt nauseous and lightheaded and needed to sit down and hug a fluffy animal while talking some calm into myself.
I knew I'd be stupid to not give it a try, but all my brain threw at me were reasons why I shouldn't. One prevalent thought, what if I get pregnant? That gives them like only 9 months and then poof. I'm gone, that is if I have a pregnancy easy enough to stand all day and do hair. And then another thought, does this mean we have to give up on trying now? I didn't realize how disappointed I would be considering this.
I didn't think that, at nearly 25, I would look at pictures of acquaintances with their children and ache to have what they have. To find myself in a bistro faced with a crying infant and want to snatch it out of its baby sitter's arms to comfort, bounce, and coo it back to a peaceful sleep. To cry when a heartfelt parenting commercial comes up. To feel indignant when people tell me they feel we are too young to start a family.
It terrifies me, but that's where I'm at right now. I smile to myself when I think about nights reading aloud, sharing my favorite stories and hoping my kids get sucked so deeply into these spectacular worlds that I love so much that they long for them to be as real as I do. To share disney music and old school VHS tapes with them. To indoctrinate them with our favorite music, hoping that someday I'll look at my backseat where my 3 year old is bumbling through twenty-one pilots lyrics, or humming one of flea's baselines perfectly. I long to be the reason they laugh so uncontrollably that they start to hiccup, or the one they run to because they're crying and mama can always make it better.
I have no doubt that I was given a gift of art in hairdressing, but deep down, I feel like I was put on this earth to give the gift of physical, spiritual, emotional, and mental nourishment to people, (and maybe particularly ones that look kinda like me)
Maybe I am crazy. But I don't care. You can call me crazy when you're almost 60 and still have an 18year old at home while I've been empty nested and world traveling with my husband for the past 10-13 years ;)
I think that you should do whatever your heart desires, regardless of if other people think you are crazy :)
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