Gettin' Fixed

This last week marked an anniversary of sorts, the anniversary of getting canned. Or the 'great dawn of the new age' from which this whole wisdom in training thing has sprung. It seems like I have been getting asked a lot lately what I do. It's strange because I find it increasingly difficult to answer. My 'previous' life, as I like to call it, the one where I worked as a designer, keeps getting more distant and foreign. It would seem an obvious thing that as time floats on your experiences would get cloudy, but it's different than that. It's much more like a hyper-humping dog that's been neutered and now sits contently in a trance state and the owner doesn't quite know if the dog is happy or contemplating suicide now his manhood has been surgically removed. And there's that mixture of relief and sadness that people passing by have for that now non-humping dog that his youthful vibrancy is gone but their legs and small children remain safe. Yeah, it's kind of like that.

Too much of an analogy?

You would think that two years would have solved some of these identity issues that have been written about since this blog has started. And it has. The issue is that I realize now its much deeper than I anticipated. I anticipated that I would have a third child stay at home for a few years til the economy got better and then go back to work and try my best to fit back in to that old lifestyle. Buuuut... I don't know now. It's like now that craziness of trying to be super-woman was surgically removed, I kind of like staying at home on the porch and watching the world go by. I just hate the sad eyes of everyone who passes me by, thinking I'm just a shadow of my former self.

That was totally deep huh?

I think we all see ourselves in a role. And mine was to follow in the footsteps that were laid before me. My mother gave birth to me and almost immediately went back to work. She had 'activities' every night of the week, she was a volunteer paramedic, active in the church choir, visited old people, on every committee which requested her, and attended almost all my school activities. A pillar of the community. They were able to pay for my college and retire and continue to live comfortably. She lived the dream.

But she was tired, grumpy. She resented my father at every turn. There was never a family dinner together, no vacations, no chats about how our lives were going. Things were at the very least extremely tense when I was a teenager because I didn't trust her, there was no connection. And to be honest, I never thought it could have been any different, until now.

I was on that same path, I think. My mother was a very good role model for me in what to do for my community, her attitude in that respect is still something I admire. But when I found myself so exhausted and overwhelmed, I started to remember how it made me feel as a kid. As proud as I was at her accomplishments, I still never really had that sense of family. The question is, which is more important to the development of our kids?

Being at home has taken the craziness out of my life. When that was removed, I saw the gaping holes I was leaving for my girls and their sense of home and value. The last two years have been about repairing those holes in my life and hopefully change the course of how my family is raised. I will always be eternally grateful that this anniversary of getting fixed/axed. It's just, where do I go from here?

(If any of you say 'get pregnant again' I'll leave you a flaming turd bag on your front porch.)