Let me preface this by saying that I love my life now. I love staying at home with Samuel and being there for all of his crazy antics and teaching him things and hugging and kissing him when he falls down and all those good things.
I love keeping an extra little baby.
I love that I have time to work out and (sometimes) clean my house and catch up with friends and fold laundry and maybe catch a House Hunters during nap time.
Seriously, I'm one lucky lucky chica. Really, I am.
Unfortunately, there's the other part of me. The part of me that skipped 4th grade and became a national merit scholar and graduated valedictorian with a bajillion and one scholarship offers. The part of me that worked really hard and graduated summa cum laude and got named student of the year by two different departments.
Then there was the part of me that moved 1000 miles away and had a terrible time networking. There's the idealist part of me that turned down perfectly wonderful jobs that would have made us really good money because I wanted to do something that made a difference in the lives of others. The part of me that, instead, worked in a thankless job that was way below my skill level for 2 1/2 years while my husband was in medical school (though I did occasionally feel like I got to make a contribution to society, which was the whole purpose of taking that job in the first place) because I knew eventually I would get to go back to school and really figure things out.
And I knew this entire time I wanted to have children, though I never really worked that into the puzzle when I was planning my life out as a newlywed. I didn't know I wanted to stay at home, but I'm glad that I am.
But at least once a month I start to wonder... what about when I'm done? Babies don't stay babies forever.
I still want to go back to school. I still want to have a career. I want to believe that that intelligent, driven woman is still lurking back there somewhere. That she's still capable of learning and applying complicated concepts and giving new insights into problems that really affect people.
But sometimes I get scared. What if mommying fries my brain? I mean, I make sure I read a lot and try to stay semi-up-to-date on things and I have been working really hard to find some creative outlets etc. It's not like I'm not doing anything.
Still, it's not the same as being in the scholastic/work world. What if, at 35, I finally decide to go back and find that I just don't have it anymore? What if I can't cut it? What if - because, hey! my child(ren) might go to school, but they'll still be around! - I don't want to cut it because I still don't want/need to sacrifice that time that I could/should be giving to my family? I definitely know myself well enough to know that I will want to go ALL IN. What if I just can't do that and balance a family?
I know lots of women work and have kids. It's not a bad thing. But at this point in my life, with a husband who often works 80+ hours a week, I have a hard time seeing beyond that.
Maybe I won't ever go back. I mean, ultimately, that's okay. As long as I'm doing what I feel God has called me to do - and right now, I am - then I can just take it one step at a time. But if I'm not supposed to do more, why do I still have this desire to?
Sure, I feel sad sometimes when I hang out with some of our female doctor friends. I know that was a path I could have gone down and chose not to. I also know that they will eventually face the same dilemma I'm in only from a much different perspective. How many female doctors have I known/heard of who quit entirely to stay at home? It happens pretty often.
I guess ultimately I should be grateful that things have worked out like they have. I didn't take a prestigious job that would be difficult to quit and I put off school because Eric was already accruing enough student loans for both of us. I went ahead and had a baby at 25 and now, instead of having a lucrative career that I had to put on hold to stay at home with my children, I can do it without any qualms about what else I should be doing.
It's really the best thing, and I'm grateful for the way things have gone. I still often wonder what will be, though.
Once again, don't get me wrong. I love my life now. But these two lives I really want - they're two that I don't know can ever really coexist. Maybe when I'm 60.
Anyway, there are the rambling thoughts of an overly tired mother who should have gone to bed an hour ago. Congratulations if you made it this far. ;-)
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