the day-to-day

This morning my alarm went off at 6am. I haven't seen 6am in two weeks, though I have seen 3 and 4am a couple of times!

Back to work this morning. It's not that I hate my job, really. I'm actually very lucky, I work with wonderful people. My job is not usually demanding (though there are times . . .) In fact, I'm typing this at work right now.

It's not a secret that I want to stay home and have babies and hang laundry on the line and cook dinner every night and the little monotonous things about every day life. I want all that so bad it hurts, really. I don't know when that happened. Once upon a time I didn't want children. Then I had my oldest and I didn't want more, then sometime in the year or so before having my youngest I decided I wanted a lot more. Somewhere along the line strong-headed, stubborn, feminist me decided I just wanted to stay home and have babies. Lots of them.

My youngest is now 6. Six. There are various reasons I haven't had more since then, and all of them are perfectly logical and reasonable. But my biological clock is neither logical or reasonable. It is cranky. And loud, and louder by the year. I'll be 30 this year. I know that's not old, but when you have your first child as young as I did, 30 seems so final. Too late. Seems with every tick-tock the desire gets stronger, but is also followed by a growing resignation, a quiet little voice letting me know that it might just not be meant to be.

The problem is, I don't know where that leaves me. The plan, or my plan anyway, was always to work until The Husband finished school. And then he would get a job and I'd stay home for a couple of years and raise the babies and do the domestic goddess gig and then maybe work part time for a few years, or finally start selling things at the local flea market, or something. And now it's been 5 years. And The Husband is nearing the end of his schooling. And now, for some reason, that dream seems farther away than it was five years ago. I'm not quite sure how to come to terms with that, and I'm not quite sure where to go next.

I don't want to work here forever, at least not in this position as simple and usually enjoyable as it is. I don't love it. I'm not passionate about it. I could go back to school, upgrade on my accounting and business degrees. But that doesn't really move me either. I could go for holistic nutrition or, I dunno, something else. But I'm just not feeling it. It's not that I'm lazy or unmotivated. I'm not interested in climbing a corporate ladder, and I've always been ok with that - but I just don't feel interested in anything career wise. I'm so blinded by wanting to raise a family that nothing else gets me inspired or moving. Even the things I'm passionate about, sustainable food (cooking, nutrition, budgeting etc . . .), crafting etc. . . all of those things have become family motivated.

I don't actually have a problem with that. I know some women don't like the idea of being that centered around their family that they forget outside interests or whatever, but it's not that I've forgotten them, they've just shifted. I'm in the middle of my family life. My kids are 11 and 6. I think it makes sense that they are my center right now, you know?

I don't know. This isn't at all what I meant to write today. But that's okay, I guess. That's part of the reason I started blogging. I don't often take the time to write this stuff down anymore, to journal. And really, it helps me get it all sorted out in my head or even if it doesn't, it feels good to let it out.