Being Me…

I have been worrying a lot about our situation (go figure - both of us without jobs and we have two small children). Well, that really doesn’t help anything. The question right now is, “What can I do to improve our situation/my life?”

There are things I can do on the financial front.

• I can get haircuts a bit less frequently.
• I can make recipes that stretch food a bit more - things that are filling but take less meat for example.
• I can look at less expensive fruits and vegetables.
• I can make sure that the loads of laundry are full.
• I can look into insurance since we’re going to need to change soon.

There are things on a stress-relief level:

• I can write down my worries at night before bed and pick it up in the morning.
• I can take 15 minutes a day to have peace and quiet or listen to music.
• I can take the time to soak in nice bath once  a week.
• I can get out of the house once a week, even if I don’t have errands that need running.

It’s never too late to be who you might have been. George Eliot

I like that quote, but I wonder if it is true.  I’m a mother of two and I’ve got 17 years of experience in a field that I left (permanently, I thought) three years ago.  I’m “not a spring chicken” anymore, to quote my more colorful relatives.  (Yes, they have quite a gift with words!)

I started college in the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech at the urging of my parents, step-father, and several other well-meaning family members.  “You can make a great living at that,” they said, completely overlooking the fact that I really wasn’t sure that I was all that interested in it.  What I loved at the time (and for many years earlier) was marine biography; my goal/dream was to work with Jacques Cousteau and/or to study sharks.  I excelled at biology and things of that nature, and I didn’t do so well in calculus and technical things.  What possessed my family to urge me into engineering still puzzles me; looking back I realize that all of my strengths were in biology, languages, writing - not maths and physics.

Oddly enough, I have since conquered my math phobia - I earned Bs in two semesters of calculus in the last year or two.  I’m currently studying computer science, having long since realized that I’m too practical to go into marine biology now.  Yes, I’ve talked myself out of it.  Besides, the big lure for me is gone.  Jacques Cousteau is long dead.  I lost that dream a long, long time ago, while I was still studying engineering.

What I wonder now is this: is it to late to be who I might have been?  Is it too late to be the person I might have been had I followed my own star, listened to my own heart and mind rather than those of my well-meaning but misguided family?

I don’t know.  It looks like I’m going to go back to work soon instead of back to class.  My husband’s having a hard time with his job search and one of us has to go back to work.  If I do that and take yet another semester off, I don’t know that I’ll make it back to school to be a programmer.  I don’t know.  I hate to think it is too late to get off this path that I found myself on accidentally after I left engineering.  I want to find  a job that doesn’t make me wince in the morning when I realize it is time to get up.  I want to find something that I love, that enables me to enjoy the time I spend at work.

How can I  be this tired for a week and have trouble getting to sleep?  Why is my daughter (3 months old) suddenly waking every two to three hours at night to nurse again?  Will I ever sleep again?  Will I ever be able to just let my family’s words roll off my back?

I think the insomnia started big-time when I talked to my father and he started asking about our situation again, including personal finance questions.  He started hinting that maybe I needed to get a job or do something about the situation.  This despite the fact that I’ve told him I’m doing everything I can at the moment, including dealing with depression (both related to the situation and post-partum).  I swear no one in my family listens to a word I say.  I’ve had insomnia problems before but this is awful.  Just about the time I DO manage to get to sleep, my daughter wakes up and wants to nurse…not every night, but often enough I’m not getting anywhere near the sleep I need - and not enough to feel rested.  I know this will pass, but I have to wonder if I’ve got the reserves to make it through this.  Sigh.

(As a side note, I do have to say that I like this blog.  I’m venting on all sorts of subjects that I have no other outlet for right now - it feels great to get it all out!)