Home Again

{every year, when they get back from their week away, i always have a card waiting on their bed for them}

It's quiet.  I expect that my girls could walk in the door anytime within the next half hour or so.  Right now the house is clean and still.  I know soon though there will be shoes, bags, dirty clothes, stuffed animals, new things to find homes for spread across the floor here downstairs.

I've enjoyed this time alone.  Nights with movies. Mornings with only myself to get ready. Eating whatever I want when I want.  It's been nice to slow down.  With no children there was not much by way of demands outside of getting up to go to work each day.

But I'll be glad to see them home where they should be.   It will be nice to know they are asleep across the hall.  It will be nice to feel my little one's arms wrapped back around me in a hug.

I am wondering how long it will be until I'm exasperated?  How long until I lose my temper?  Probably not as long as I would like.

I'm on my way to learning though.  What I thought I should learn which is take it slow.  Don't think too far ahead.  Enjoy the moment.  Accomplish one task at a time and then be happy you've done it.

And don't take things so seriously.

That's a tough one.

Hope you are having a good week.  The days are going by so fast.

Right Now: 7.6.2011

Jennifer:  Girls Return Tonight

home alone.

All your weekends sound so lovely.  I think it's interesting how you look at your own life and you think well okay, this is what we did and yes, it was nice, but to someone else where it is quite different from their own life, it sounds wonderfully enticing.

We had a woman come into our credit union today leaving to go to Italy.  And I said "OH! I am so jealous will you eat for me" and she just looked at me and said, "The food in Italy isn't any better than here".  And I just thought, oh but it must be.

It's funny because I am just a girl who still lives in her hometown.  I never have really travelled anywhere.  I had the opportunity to go to England in high school with our church group but didn't make the grades at school, so I wasn't allowed to go.  My parents have a house in Canada so I've been there and I've visited about ten of the U.S. states, but other than that I stick close to home.  I would love to travel one day.  I would especially like to go to Europe, everything is so OLD there.  I would like to go to the Caribbean Islands sometime.  I would like to go to New Zealand.  Africa, to see the elephants.  Patagonia, for it's beauty and it's reputation.  I think everyone in my family has been to Ireland but me.  My sister several times and to Scotland too.   My brother has been to France.   He also bicycled all the way across the United States with friends.

For now I stay close to home with my babies, it seems that is what you do.  That and well, single mothers aren't floating in cash for elaborate vacations are they?   I am reluctant to go anywhere without my girls.  It's just this funny thing I have.  I left them for the first time ever this year on my four day trip to Colorado which was a HUGE, scary thing for me to do.

The girls have left me right now.  They left this afternoon for a week at the beach with their father's family.  The ocean is about three hours from here.  So they are off vacationing and I am here, at home, at work.  I flew home from work and managed to see them five minutes before they left.  It was hard to watch them go.  I went up and sat with my grandmother on her porch afterward; she was watching them go as well.  I was okay then.  I came home to read my book then realized I left it at work in my hurry to get home, so I cleaned out a closet, did a load of laundry, cleaned up all the leftover toys from the downstairs.  Then I sat down and cleaned all the photos off my desktop and loaded the edited ones online.

I don't think I've managed to do that much in a week.   I didn't even manage to put some words on the page Monday, I was so spent.  I am actually looking forward to some quiet time and some decompressing.  No one to cook dinner for, no one to get after to pick up, no one fighting with each other.  It will be odd though here as soon as I go to bed.  No one to tuck in or look in on.  Going to bed without having them safe in the next room leaves me feeling....incomplete.  I wonder what the dog will do, she always climbs the stairs and settles in between their beds.  I hope that she doesn't make her way to mine, she licks her paws and it drives me crazy to hear that in the night.

So now, I will sign off.  Make that climb up the stairs.  It is amazing to think that no one will wake me in the night with a bad dream, or a tummy ache, or a foot cramp, or just checking to make sure I am still here.  I better savor it, because it will all be over soon and life will be back to normal.

Right Now: 6.21.11

Jennifer--Trying To Smile Through Chaos

Right Now 6:8 2011

A Message To The Little Photographer: Jennifer

Motherhood and what comes next

                                                                                                                             “Your children are not your children

                                                                                               They are the sons and daughters of life’s longing for itself

                                                                                               They come through you but not from you

                                                                                               And though they are with you yet they belong not to you”

                                                                                                                                                    Kahlil Gibran, On Children                                                                                         

  

As a child I didn't know what to say in answer to the question what did I want to be when I grew up? All I ever wanted to be was grown up. Last year I was asked what I dreamed of as a 10 year old, and that is all I could say, I just wanted to be an adult. As I grew, I still didn't have any idea what I wanted to do, or be. I detested school and got out as soon as I could at age 16 with few qualifications, just enough to get me a job as a clerical assistant in the Civil Service. I did that for a while, then went to work in the magistrates' courts service. Those jobs were okay, some I liked more than others. I was glad to leave work to have my baby.

My son was born when I was 23 and yes, he was the focus of everything I did from then on. I found my vocation in being his mother, I loved it, and would have loved more children and to spend even more years raising them. It is the most interesting and rewarding thing I have ever done, by a long way. I loved watching him grow, helping him to discover the world. I even loved the fact that it was just the two of us, although it was sometimes hard, and there was never enough money. To make ends meet I took in ironing, did cleaning, babysitting, various little bits and pieces to earn a little extra money whenever I could. I rarely went anywhere without him, and from the age of eleven he was home educated which meant we went everywhere together almost all of the time. There was a lot of fun in our house, and a lot of love. There still is. 

He will be 20 years old in July. Over the years they need you less, but that is exactly what you want for them. All the time my son was growing up, I knew these days would come, but they seemed so far away and now all of a sudden, I don’t know where the years have gone. It doesn’t quite seem like the proverbial ‘yesterday’ when I was holding that little baby in my arms in the hospital,  but it seems like maybe five or six years, except that somehow in the intervening years I have become middle aged.

You asked, now he is older how do I look at where to go next? The honest answer is I don't really know. A few years ago I went back to work, but had to leave last year because of my ongoing health problems. Work, at least the jobs I have had, has never been very enjoyable. At least, I have never had a job that I would continue to do if I didn't have to for the money. I think most people just end up doing whatever pays the bills, and probably don't even think of what they would like to be doing. How wonderful it would be to have a job that you love!

For the past year or so a lot of my time and creative energies went into planning my wedding in April and now normal life has resumed. Like you, I have things I would like to do, or be. Somehow I don't quite know how to get there. I don't know where to start.

when i grow up.

I sat down the other day when we talked about revisiting dreams and thought not only about what I envisioned my dream life to look like from a sense of place but also from a sense of what I wanted to be doing.  How I wanted my "work" to represent myself.  It seems a bit ridiculous to be sitting at the age of "just shy of 40" and say I don't know what I want to be when I grow up.  I should be grown up, and I should be "something".

I loved what you said about not needing "big" dreams.  I like that your ideas for a happy future involve small things, like gardens and tortoises.  Whereas you say that you have never allowed yourself to reach out for something grand, I seem to be unable to rein mine in.  What I like so much about you is your sense of contentment in your place and I know that is not 100% true.  I know you think beyond the scope of your front door, but I can never seem to get away from the urgency of needing to be something other than what I am.

So I dream that little dream and then it happens....what always happens.  My mind takes off on a journey of it's own.  It's never simple enough as to be, say, "one day soon I hope to be a _____".  It goes something like this.

I want to work from home.  I want to be my own boss.  I want to be a writer, either magazine contributions, or books, novels or photo journals.  I want to be a photographer, having my work in a gallery, or selling off prints or postcards.  I could do unique and unusual portraits for people, capturing their innermost qualities and letting them shine through.  I want to work with young girls, those in  the midst of their awkward, self-involved teenage years or those on the brink.  I could work with them and help them find themselves through creative outlets.  I want to have classes or seminars where they can come and explore writing, or painting or sketching or photography and express without fear of retribution who and what they are becoming. I want to be a yoga instructor, teaching to children.  I've thought of being a teacher again, having dropped out of college in my early twenties to do just that.  I've dreamed of being a wellness professional, a park ranger, a bakery owner.

I do this until I have so many ideas of what I "could" do that I can no longer see through the clutter at what I "should" do.  I do this until I just sit down with my head stuck in the midst of too many thoughts and just give up.

Apparently I've never felt good enough to be just who I am.  Right now, I work as a bank teller, or a bank cashier as you would say, and it's good work.  I know I will bring home a paycheck every two weeks, I know there will always be enough money for me to buy groceries and clothing and a little more for nights out and little surprises.  I know that when one of us falls ill we have medical insurance that will pay for trips to the doctor and the medicines we need.  (We do not have national healthcare as you do, our medical insurance is paid partly by both your employer and yourself, if you are self-employed you pay the entire chunk.  As an employee, I pay $167.00 per pay as my portion for medical insurance just for myself, not counting the girls, so you can see how costly that would be if I didn't work or we just had to forgo it).

So there are reasons that I do what I do now.  The stability and the protection. I am the sole supporter of my girls, so I must do what I can in this given situation to provide for them.  My current job, though about half the pay grade I used to have, enables me to be at home on the weekends and to also leave only 10 minutes earlier and about 45 minutes later than the girls have school each day.  And thankfully, I have my father and grandparents who are both retired and live close to usher them to and from the school bus each day. So in the end the job I have now allows me to be the mother I need to be for my girls.  I can financially support them and I have (almost) enough time to be here when they need me to be "mom". 

In the end and after spilling all this out to you, it seems there is only one job that really matters to me and that is the job of "mother".  I think sometimes that perhaps that title is the only one that really matters and all the rest is just either a means to an end or a bonus.  If at the end of my days, I can say I raised the girls to become happy and strong women than perhaps no matter how I got there, that is the one thing I can be proud of.  I know that you raised your son alone and that you were responsible for a huge part of his education.  So what do you think?  Was motherhood for you the thing that guided what you did in life?  And now that he is older how do you look at where to go next?  I love these days growing my girls.  I cannot imagine what my life's purpose will be once they are grown.  So maybe, that is where all those big schemes that I listed above come into play.  Or maybe I will just look forward to getting a full night's rest or a little time to sit in the breeze uninterrupted and read a book.