The Road Not Taken

Today I found a journal I kept during my last year and a half of college. It describes the most painful breakup I ever had, my subsequent crush on a guy who is now my pastor (I swear it's not weird now), and finally the Happy Ending in which I meet the love of my life--and he was available, not to mention interested in me! But before I met Justin, I was kind of a mess.

When I wasn't moping about my chaotic love life, I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do for a career. I may have mentioned that I was a little compulsive overconscientious about studying in college? I was a TOTAL nerd who actually made outlines from the lecture notes AND the textbook. I was very good at school. And school was about to be over, and I would have to get a real job, and who would hire me? What type of job should I even apply for? Memorizing lecture notes and filling out scan-trons are not job skills!

panicpanicpanicpanic

My professors encouraged me to go to grad school. I was planning to apply, but then I panicked some more about leaving home (I stayed in my home town for college) and I wasn't sure I would be good enough in the Big Leagues. I was writing an application paper that could have been a master's thesis instead of just picking a paper I'd gotten an A on and sending it in. Pretty soon I'd freaked myself out so badly that I stopped sleeping for days. It only ended when I called my dad at three a.m. and said tearfully, "Dad? I don't want to go to grad school."

My half-asleep dad, who had never said I had to go to grad school, said, "Okay." I don't know if I slept that night, but I felt better. Until I realized I had to get a job.

But then I taught high school in a private school, met Justin and got married, and the rest is history.

But it might not have happened the way it did. Reading that journal today, when I got to the parts about what I was studying and writing, the thought popped into my head, "I should have been a professor." I've known for a long time that my brain is suited for academia. That doesn't mean that's all my brain can do, of course--just that it's one option I could have taken, and didn't. I did eventually go to grad school for a year and a half before I had Miss Pink. I'm glad I went, because at least I know exactly what I didn't choose, and I almost never regret it. It takes a long time to get a Ph.D. and then I'd have to publish or perish (figuratively--it means that you have to publish articles and books in your field if you want job security), and by then I would've had kids anyway. And lots of good things have happened to me because I didn't stay in that world--starting with Miss Pink and Mr. Blue.

But I wish I was certain of my goal in life. Besides raising my children to be awesome people, of course.

And I think that is part of the problem. Every so often, I want to be something other--something supposedly more than--a stay-at-home mom. Deep down, for some reason, I believe that being a wife and mother is not enough as a life goal. At the same time, I don't want to go back to teaching school full-time unless I have to! It must be a case of "the grass is always greener." Maybe I'm dissatisfied with being a SAHM or a teacher because I've already done those things and I crave more recognition. So that makes me wish I could be a scholar or a novelist. Neither of those paths is closed to me, but they're not exactly things I can start doing tomorrow. And I suspect that if I was able to step into that life, I would find that it isn't all that, either.

I have some thoughts about what I can do to overcome my discontent, but I'll save them for another post.