3. There Is No Destination
Part of my existential crisis - which has resulted in me quitting my corporate job and relocating to Bend - has been fueled by my need to feel like I need to have my life “figured out” before I have kids. I am not currently trying to have kids but now, at age 31, I am feeling intense pressure to have my ducks in a row. What does this mean/look like in reality? It’s not clear. I feel strongly that I can’t have a kid right now even if I wanted to. I am unemployed and lost!
The other day, I had a long conversation with my friend, who just had a baby two months ago, and she helped “debunk” this idea. Your life doesn’t end when you have kids. Can you believe it? I can’t believe it. In theory, I know this to be true. I have worked with plenty of women who have had children. Their lives didn’t end. They continued to grow and evolve. Life goes on. You will continue to go on, too.
But having a kid is hard and you do set your own needs aside to focus on your baby. My friend had just listened to my first podcast episode, where another friend and I discussed the pros and cons of having children. She interpreted my fear as a fear of not owning my time. That is one of my fears - I love dictating my schedule - but the fear weighing heavy on me now is about “purpose.”
How can I move to the next phase of life, and bring new life into the world, when my life is incomplete? I have not done anything meaningful with my life! I have not improved the state of the world. My friend assured me that I had great friendships. To be clear, I realize I am not dying. I am not depressed. I don’t think my life has been a gigantic waste of time. I don’t understand why I feel like saving the world is a prerequisite to having children. Does anyone else feel this way?
When I got home I googled “need to have meaningful work before having kids” and I stumbled upon this helpful advice column: Ask Polly: Do I Have a Baby or Have a Career?
Because even though you keep saying you “don’t want to work,” you “just want to have beautiful babies,” I read that as the temporary sentiment of someone who’s trapped in a job she hates. I know plenty of happy housewives, but they’re naturally low-key people for the most part, not people who send rambling three-page letters to advice columnists. Based on the racing, anxious rhythms of your letter, I really don’t think you fit the happy-housewife profile. I think you’re imagining that “downshifting” to raise beautiful babies is a little bit like an extended vacation, a little breast-feeding and cooing and one gorgeous photo op after another. If your husband and maybe an in-law are around after the baby is born (strongly recommend!), your maternity leave will feel luxurious and relaxing. But day-to-day life at home alone with an infant is a particular kind of challenge, one that, based on my personal observations, suits maybe one out of ten women well. Personally, I love babies a lot, but I need a little bit of time each day to think and write and be alone and get shit done. It’s easy enough to get obsessed with having babies when you love your husband, love your house, hate your job, and don’t know what else you’d want to do instead. But I would strongly recommend that you not choose to have a baby sooner simply because it offers the best one-way ticket away from corporate purgatory.
You need to address your career situation separately instead of throwing it into the mix of having kids and then summing it all up as impossible.
So many great nuggets in this article. I feel very seen by this other woman who sends “rambling three-page letters to advice columnists with racing, anxious rhythms.” Where are you my long lost, anxious soul sister? We need to get coffee (decaf, clearly).
“Separate your career situation from the prospect of having kids.” Hmm, sounds rational. But how? As soon as I think of having kids, I think about how I will need to get a corporate job because, if anything, I want to ensure I stick it to the man and force some soulless corporation to pay me while I create a tiny, new human. Plus, everyone I know who has kids won’t shut the hell up about how expensive childcare is. So how on earth can one separate those two?
I get it. If I’m not trying to have a kid right now, why put that added pressure on myself? Focus on the task at hand: find a way to make money that doesn’t make me want to set myself on fire. This is another example of my tendency to stay stuck because if I don’t have a proper (perfect) plan, then I throw my hands up and give up altogether. Hence, the situation I am in now.
Here are the facts: I do not want to continue to work remotely. I am very lonely. I feel isolated and sad. I want to engage with other people regularly. I want to mix things up. I want to try a job that requires tactile skills instead of tactical skills. I only recently learned what tactical and tactile mean, as well as the former and the latter (which I just had to look up to double-check - the former refers to the first item in the list, the latter to the last item). This has made me realize that I use words that I don’t know how to define all the time and no one ever calls me on it. Cantankerous - I think it means cranky but I just like the word. I digress…
The former (tactical) is “individual steps to accomplish an overarching strategy” and the latter (tactile) is “of or connected with the sense of touch.” I told myself I’d like to try to be a barista, just to try it! But my ego says, “Baristas make minimum wage! Who do you think you are? A lost art school dropout?” I remind myself that this is my fragile ego talking but I get swallowed by the hypothetical situation where I have to serve one of my friends coffee and they say “You work here!?” and I burst into flames.
I’d like to get moving. I have spent the last 3 years sitting on my butt and staring into a screen of doom. I feel my bones screaming out for more movement. I applied to work as a whole health clerk at a natural grocery store because I am into “clean beauty” and would be down to talk to people about products that are better for their health than traditional toxic products. I’d also be stocking inventory and moving my body. But what will people think!?
As I mentioned, I have started going to therapy again. This week, she assigned me the same thing as last week. “Notice your negative thought patterns, name them and remember the ways you can untwist your thinking.” “BUT I DID THAT LAST WEEK!” I groaned. “Can’t I move on to step two?!” Guess what. Just because I thought about my warped thinking once, does not mean I am “cured.”
The worst part? There is no such thing as cured! Every damn day you have to keep trying to be the person you want to be. This is a new concept for me and it feels demoralizing. I have been a destination chaser my whole life, so accepting this new reality has been difficult (I am still in denial). Life is about maintenance, you can’t eat a bowl of kale and look like Heidi Klum. You have to keep making choices that align with the person you want to be. Even if you are Heidi Klum! What on earth! No one told me this. I have been lied to. I thought if I worked hard in high school, went to a good college, got a good job, got married, blah blah blah, I’d be done - I’d be happy! I’d deserve to be happy and I could finally exhale.
I have everything I’ve ever been told to want and I’m still unhappy. I thought this meant I was defective but now I realize it’s all a giant hamster wheel set up to keep society afloat. I know, we live in a capitalist society and life is expensive and we have to work but damn they tricked me.
Do you know how silly I feel typing “it’s about the journey, not the destination”? I feel ridiculous. Mindfulness is key, blah blah blah. Everybody knows this stuff. I’m so annoyed it has taken me over 31 years to truly understand that external markers of success mean nothing. Stop chasing happiness! I am still blocked because I am too afraid to apply for a barista job. After all, it won’t look good on paper. It’s not “impressive” or “meaningful.” What a silly way to live! Trapped by the thought of what others will think.
My therapist asked me “what is going well?” I couldn’t think of anything and told her that I am a failure. She rephrased, “what are you doing that is not failing?” I still came up empty.
I read Nicole Antoinette’s “What's Working” newsletter on Monday and the following blurb stood out to me:
“I’ve recently started training for my next long-distance hike, and am once again experiencing the early season urge to weaponize last year’s peak fitness against my current self. Not succumbing to this is an ongoing practice for me”
Reading this behavior typed out made me feel deeply seen. I tend to weaponize past peak performance against my current self. I do this all the time! What an evil thing to do to yourself!! Of course, I feel like a failure!
So even though today’s post feels very whiny, ranty and I am embarrassed to send it, I am proud of myself because Nicole’s words have helped me ~*name a negative thought pattern and this awareness is step one, now I can try to troubleshoot ways to untwist my thinking*~ This feels like a ridiculous thing to be proud of but OH WELL. TTFN!
Tags - Fear, Motherhood, Work