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Jobs
2004-03-19 - 3:15 p.m. It's early, but everyone is gone. It's spring break, so everyone left early. But I'm being good, to make up for all my periods of badness. (Also, it's nice here when no one else is here.) Let's see -- The cafe up the street now has new pasta salads. This is a good thing. Maddy rides horses with a girl who gets driven to the barn by her grandmother. (This is a strange phenomenon -- some people grow up in the town where their grandmothers live, and then the grandmothers drive them around to afterschool things. Hmmm. My neighbor's mother takes her granddaughters to gymnastics once a week. In my experience, the grandmothers feel somewhat put out.) Anyway -- the grandmother seems to be a poet (I googled her name and she is there, but barely). So she sits and revises her poems while I knit. It's an interesting thing. I used to be more of a writer than a knitter. It's okay being a knitter, though. And the sweater, which I worried was too narrow, is not. Also, a few weeks ago Nora had to interview me for a social studies project. Afterwards, she asked me if I hadn't wanted to do anything else. You know, something that would help people more. It's interesting. I had a couple of thought. First, I though, what a nice thing for her to think, actually -- that you might want to have a job about helping people. Then I though, oh no! My children are old enough to realize what a failure I am! I am kind of conflicted. (Duh!) I do like my job, but a lot of the time I feel like I'm holding on by my fingernails, when I have to take time off for kids' doctor visits and parent/teacher conferences and math tutoring and horseback riding and not to mention just dinner and vacuuming. It's really hard to have a true career and children, although certainly some people manage it better than I do. I think I decided as soon as they were born that I was much more devoted to them than to my job, and that's kind of been the state of things since. But it is a little odd, since of course, all people are supposed to have meaningful careers, too -- Would I still be in this job if I had no children? Hmmm. I went to a meeting today with someone who does sort of what I do, but because she has no kids, and because it truly is her career, she's much more devoted than I am, and I'm sure her actual job is a lot more interesting than mine is. I mean, if I were truly devoted to my job, it would actually be a lot more interesting. But it's also likely that I would have moved up or on by now -- I'd have more responsibilities, or I would have gone to law school, or I'd be in a different institution. I think when the kids head off to college, which is actually not all that far away now, I'll see. I told Nora that I thought I'd write a book. We'll see. You know -- I was very worried when I got out of college (and even in college) about what I would do, etc. I wish I could go back to that self and say, don't worry. It's very hard to balance everything. Have some kids, and when they're grown, then you can worry about it. Not sure I would have believed myself, though. Anyway. The thing is, though, just life itself is pretty interesting. Maybe I'm easily amused, but just doing normal stuff like worrying about dinner and keeping the house reasonably clean, and laundry and the garden and the kids -- seems to me that that might be almost enough to keep me occupied. Maybe I'd think differently if that's what I was doing, but I'm not so sure -- I mean, I can read, and knit -- I could have a boat. I could bike. I really do think I could keep myself amused. I don't know -- it's an interesting question. And now I have to go get Maddy and take her to the bead store. She's got a fairly profitable business going making earrings and selling them to her friends ... Bye.
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