Lately I’ve been feeling so unsure of myself, of who I am. I feel...not like I’m at a crossroads, but like I’m not even on the road to begin with. Like I have no choices, only dreams. I think I have that new Facebook Depression. I hear things about people and I’m immediately jealous: he’s going back to school, she has an amazing job as a travel writer, he lives in Seattle. At times I wonder if I will ever truly be happy, but mostly I just wonder if I would be happier doing something else. Anything else. Anything else besides working full time and raising my kid part time and living in the Midwest in a house we can barely afford.
It feels like I have three choices for my fantasy future: (1) be a stay at home mom, (2) go back to school and get my PhD in Nursing, or (3) be a writer. I can’t do any of these things with a small child, it seems (well OK, I could be a stay at home mom, but we depend on my income to buy said small child such frivolous items as food and clothing). So I feel like what I have to do is just wait.
I have an amazing opportunity at work to make a little more money, which will be absolutely wonderful, since we’re up to our ears in debt. We’ve started thinking recently about adding to our family, and again, wonderful. But I still can’t let myself be happy. Never mind happy, I can’t let myself just be. I can’t be happy for someone’s acceptance into a master’s program, their new job, or their big move cross country “just because,” without being a little bit jealous. Because I wish wish WISH it were me.
I was complaining to my best friend about the ugliness of our kitchen cabinets over lunch one day and she told me how important it is to appreciate what we have. I think I said something like, “I know, but if we could just paint them white my life would be about 1000% better.” Since then, though, I’ve thought about our conversation and wished even harder that my life could be different.
Just kidding!
Really, I’ve tried harder to appreciate our house and the fact that though it actually does look like it was built 15 years ago, it’s a spacious house we’re comfortable living in. I’ve tried harder to appreciate my time at home with CJ, and there are days when I feel really good about my abilities as a mother. I’ve always loved my work, and I’ve had more and more shifts recently where I’ve thought, “Hey, I’m actually good at this.” (As someone with the lowest self-esteem on record, this is a Big Deal.)
But then I have a week like this one, where nothing seems to be getting better and all I want is for the next chapter of my life to come, maybe the New Baby chapter, or the CJ Goes to School and I Finally have Some Time for Myself chapter, or even the Our Debt is Paid Off and We Can Go on Vacation chapter. But the reality is, all I’m headed for tonight is the I Need to Up my Dosage chapter and while that may do the trick, it just isn’t one I want to read.
