Even when some things seem so obvious we don't always notice them until someone else points it out to us. I'm thinking of my post from last week about floundering through life without knowing where I'm headed.
I never used to identify myself with what I did for a living when I was working full time. It was just a *part* of who I was. I wonder if because I no longer have this thing occupying a good chunk of my life that I feel the need to identify with some kind of thing outside of being a parent. I used to love telling people I'm a writer and I still do, but it doesn't have that same satisfying ring that it used to.
Perhaps I'm floundering because I wish I had something to identity with. Then again, I think Babs might have hit something that I hadn't even thought of...and it seems so obvious now that I think about it. She wrote that because my fabulous part-time writing job is about parenting, my non-parenting work-break is all about the thing I'm trying to get a break from. So it's almost no break at all. And my writing is not just about parenting in general. It's about my life as a parent. It's about my kid. And it's about how I handle different parenting issues in our lives. It's almost as if my writing job is more intense than my actually parenting because I really have to dig into my parenting self and ponder, contemplate, and wonder about how I do things or want to do things.
It's almost no break at all.
That doesn't mean I don't like my job. I think it just means that I need other stuff in my life. Mostly, I think I need to hire more childcare so that I can go out and take a class--a non-writing, non-parenting class that's just for me and no one else. I need some selfish time to really detach myself from this seven-day-a-week job that I love most of the time...except when it makes me forget how to do anything else.
Stop analyzing...and stop worryng about nomenclature...who cares...do what you know you have to as a part of love and its obligation and responsibilites and the labor of love you fell to another......then do what you love as an occupation....it is that simple!!....who cares what you tell people you do? What nonsense. Find security with in yourself. Stop analyzing. Worried about what the wrold thinks you are??....tell them you are a wire hanger sales person!! Silly non sense. Spend more time doing it and less worrying about these silly things.
ReplyDeleteAt your end, and all of ours the question will not be...what was your title, or "who were you"..it will be.. what did you do! That simple.
David
I so empathize with you on this. I am fortunate to have a passion for writing about parenting that ties in well with my family, but as much as I love being Mojo Mom, I sometimes want a break from that identity as well. Something that isn't about parenting or writing for a change. Paragliding off the Empire State Building, anyone?
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