Exactly 2.2 months until the baby is born. I love round numbers.
I should really be in bed. For some reason I am back to not being able to sleep, though. Tonight, in particular, I am feeling very discontent. It's one of those "I have no idea what to do with my life" crisis nights. Never good.
I've sort of been on a break from having to deal with the evaluating life thing for the last few months- and when I say evaluating life, what I mean is the dreaded career goals topic that really needs to be addressed in my mind. Pregnancy, and the idea that nobody will hire you while you are pregnant, is a really good excuse to put the soul searching on hold.
So, here is where I stand. I will be 32 years old in exactly 10 days. I've never quite had the ambition to finish the last 2 years of my bachelor's degree. The job I used to have, which put me at the upper end of the pay scale for what most of my peers are making, deteriorated into a pile of garbage. Rather than bailing out when I should have I decided to wait. Finally couldn't stand it anymore (and wasn't making much money at it towards the end anyway) so I quit and started my own business doing the exact same thing, failing to remember the fact that I really detest sales even though I am pretty good at it. I would love to blame getting pregnant on the fact that I have been unable to find a regular job for the past few months, but if I want to be real with myself, I have to admit it's actually because I have no friggin clue what I want to do now. I'm not even sure I want a real job, because working for someone else often completely sucks. Not to mention, it's not always very lucrative, especially when you are already behind on your financial goals. I thought I'd have an easy time finding a job in my old industry, just not doing sales. I have lots of ins. It just hasn't panned out, though. Tonight I found out that the job I was really hoping would work out (I interviewed for it in the fall and even though the job was postponed they kept in touch with me) is no longer postponed... it has been canceled entirely. So there goes that. That was my best prospect. The others I have applied for in my industry have gone to internal candidates. Outside my industry I can't even get a phone call back from a resume.
So, what to do? I should probably start back at school in the summer, but I am sick of getting buried in student loans, and I have no idea what I want to major in. Until I have a clear goal in mind, school isn't going to have the desired outcome- finishing. Plus, does it really do you any good to get a Bachelors at 34? Where does that put me, entry level hell with a bunch of 20 somethings? I could try to find a job in a field that I am interested in NOW and finish school at the same time, which would put me ahead of the game. Of course that puts me in entry level hell now, and there is no way I want to put a baby in day care so that I can make peanuts while playing the corporate game again, trying to work my way up in a new industry.
If I had a better attitude things would probably be working out better! I can't help but feel like I have totally pissed off my life, though. It's time to get a better work ethic, too. By the time my mom died, I was so burnt out on working my a$$ off to overachieve and support everyone that I went in the completely opposite direction and just checked out of life. I really needed that, but didn't really have the luxury of being able to do that. Now I am on year 3 of being checked out, and it is starting to click in my head that it's no longer a break, but a lifestyle. Yikes, NOT the lifestyle I want. I mean, I can barely even claim my old identity anymore- I've developed an entirely new one- one that I hate.
If I really had my crap together I suppose I would pull my head out of my you know where and make my business work. It's not about loving your job, right? It's just about making the money. I used to think that way, and maybe I can do it again. I could certainly contact potential clients while the baby sleeps, and maybe I could find childcare a couple days a week and make those my exclusive "appointment" days where I am out of the house attending meetings. Plus, if I could just get my base income to a certain point, I could hire myself a cold caller. That's really the only part I object to- I love meeting clients and doing all the problem solving involved in managing accounts. I would probably take a class this summer at community college, too, and really work my butt off to get a good grade in it. Because getting a Bachelors in your 30s sucks, but if I am writing this same blog in my 40s it's pretty much a lost cause. There wouldn't be much down time, but maybe I need to get back into having a hectic life and things will start working for me again. I'm just so sick of feeling like a loser/failure. Plus, what kind of values am I going to instill in my daughter if I am a complete bum? I can't even figure out how to do the laundry half the time, so it's not even like I can sit around and pretend I'm domestic.
Comments are more than welcome.
4 comments:
First of all, you're seven months pregnant. That's right on time for you to enter the last-trimester orgy of despair, rage, and hopelessness :). I'm not laughing at you, just knowing that if I went back and read my journals in the last trimester of all four pregnancies, they're all "I HATE LIFE; I SUCK; WHY DIDN'T I FINISH MY MASTER'S; I AM A FAILURE."
So give yourself time to be pregnant, to enjoy whatever you can of the last few weeks, and then DO NOT put a ton of pressure on yourself once the baby is born. For one thing, you are (honestly) going to be lucky to be able to take a shower every other day for the first six months or so, so if you've thought that you'd be up and running and working a ton you're going to punish yourself even more. Nobody needs that. For another, you may find that your priorities and needs change once the baby comes. You need to give yourself a chance to get used to her and make good decisions as a mom, not as a moneymaker.
Having said that, I hear you. I promise, I hear you. I had my first baby at 23, followed by more at 25, 30, and 34. So I'm 36 now and just beginning to feel like my head is above water, and I am in the same situation. Go back to school? Try to move sideways in my current field? Give up and hide under the covers? I can't help but feel like doing grad school again would be the most frustrating choice I could make; I'd be 15 years older than anybody else and focused on getting out with a degree, not exploring my significance in the world and questioning the "art of being" or whatever crap we all told ourselves in college. I think I might wring the neck of the first professor who expected me to read 500 pages a week, too.
I'll be thinking of you - my tired old uterus knows what you're going through and also how very much it is worth it once she arrives.
Joanna's right. In a way, you're luckier as you won't have 4 kids by the time you're 34. You really need to wait until Matilda is at least a few months old before you start worrying about things.
And yeah, sometimes it's not about having a job you love, it's about the money. And not everything takes a bachelor's degree even these days; experience trumps it. But if your experience is in sales . . . Selling alarm systems seems to be a decent job, LOL.
I can't say much because I'm 25 and don't yet have a degree, but have to say I'm glad I quit school to be with Dea (Well and because of degree decision roadblock...). I almost think had I finished my degree as a "kid", it wouldn't have had enough impact as classes do now.
I was really cocky when I started college, at 16. I thought I knew everything, and I had my whole life planned out. I was very self sure, and thought people who let life goals slip away were idiots basically. At 18/19 my Gramma got cancer (She'd basically been my mother), and at 20 while on depo I got pregnant, and I realized in one big atomic WAM, life happens. Life isn't a big book you write, then do. It flows, moves, and sometimes it doesn't flow how we want, or expect. It has a life of it's own it seems!
Going back to school now has been an emotional hell on me (Mainly because I don't like classrooms), I miss her daily, and sometimes have to go cry in the car between classes but I'm doing so much better thought-wise than when I was younger, and actually learning things instead of just doing projects and taking tests to get good grades. When I was younger and cocky I'd just regurgitate things I'd learned, and never really learned. I did the motions, but didn't actively learn. Now that I've gotten rid of the "I know everything" attitude, I'm doing much better at learning in school. It's harder on me to do this, but I feel like it's more worth my time to be in school when I'm an active learner, rather than simply memorizing.
One plus about me having waited to go back, is now Dea *wants* her Mommy away time at daycare, with her friends. Some days when I don't have classes, she still asks if she can go to daycare. She's growing more independent by the day. Not the little baby who needs her Mommy every second anymore. Makes me feel much better about leaving her behind. I know I don't have the self control where I could keep going to classes if she didn't want me to leave her at daycare. If she were to say she wants to stay with me, my little heart would melt, and I'd call school off... because I'm a sucker, and also not a huge fan of school to begin with ;)
Again not a whole lot because I'm younger than you, but I figure it may help you in your decision making. Like Carolyn and Joanna say- decide after baby comes and you get into the whole Mommy routine.
Thank you, everyone, for helping put things into perspective. Yes, I am definitely going through the "despair" stage! I just feel like I am putting up one more roadblock in accomplishing what I need to accomplish (and feel like an idiot for it), plus I feel horrible when Jeff goes to work each day and is doing these long stretches out of town for work, and I contribute next to nothing right now. He never makes me feel bad about it, but I never wanted to do that stay at home, let the man bring in the money thing. Not to mention looking at how comfortable all our dual income friends are financially. It just leads to a lot of tough decisions. We sat down and put together some really small goals for the business over the next couple months. Some days I vote for hiding under the covers, though, Joanna!
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