Pull the Plug!

Summer has been full of busy weeks and shoving as much summer activities into weekends as we can. As the middle of summer approached, I started having this feeling that this couldn’t be it. We went for two months without television. Although we typically don't watch much, with three kids, it was a little dicey. I found myself looking at them and the house that was just a perpetual mess thinking, I am so much smarter than this. Then it dawned on me that with Carson going into school, I was going to be home. Alone. Yes, that did sound lovely. Until Wayne and I did an evaluation of our financial situation. I realized that there was going to come a day soon, where two paychecks looked a lot better than one. Heck, it already does. Afraid of an indefinite scope of returning to work at twelve dollars an hour, I decided it was time to look at some schooling. 

What began as a passing fancy became an obsessive thought pattern, as it often does for me. I went to a Start Up presentation at the college and just started taking the steps. On some levels I am thrilled, pleased that the one thing that I’ve always envied as I read, or saw other people taking the steps, I am grabbing. But the other hand of that is I feel like I am ditching my creative wanderlust. I am losing that year that I thought would be my creative prime: Pinterestpalooza at its finest. With all the kids in school, I would have time to craft my little heart out. I stopped when the many little hands were helping and the littles were into everything. Every five minutes I said no enough to make me wonder if the spelling and annunciation were correct. What looked like perfect timing is now making me scream, “Someone pull the plug!” 

As I eye my craft area that I so carefully created for my little place in our house, I find myself mourning the time that will be spent there studying instead.  Am I in such a hurry to have stuff figured out, to carve my place, determine my worth that I am missing what matters the most to me? I thought my worst nightmare was to wake up four or five years down the road and wonder why I didn’t take the time to go to college, being stuck in a work bracket without options and experience. I applauded my arrival back to the great American career track in an order that made more sense. Most people go to college right after high school, build their career, and then start a family, taking a break while raising children. Instead, I thought my great advantage was that I started young enough and quick enough that I could fix that and still have some of the best years to build a career. Is my overeager appetite for a slice of the pie cutting out something important? 

I thought these years would never end: the ones of three kids under three. I always looked forward to the break when the last one got into school. Who wouldn’t? I remember long overwhelming days that seemed to last an eternity. I remember staying up into the wee hours of the night just to enjoy the peace and quiet, savoring the break before it all started over again. The cereal all over the floor, soured milk sippies under beds and cribs. The endlessness of the crazy four to six witching hour where it seemed it was just about two hours of mutiny. Now I am panicking because change is coming and adding more to our plate? 

I don’t think there is ever a convenient time for life to happen. It used to bother me that I never gave much thought to planning things out, I just let life hand me things. Sometimes the unexpected was the best present that I ever received. Maybe that is why mapping out the rest seems so magnanimous to me when people casually make these decisions all the time. I have yet to meet someone who regrets their education, but see many who regret not using it. I hope to find something that will combine my creative power with something that will be worthwhile. Guess it’s time to start strategizing my crafting in with breaks, this girl has a plan. Step one is enjoying the rest of summer and my growing family, not obsessing over what isn’t here yet. So, pull that plug… save the energy for the stuff that matters now.