I'm not sure when exactly it happened... but I stopped checking the job boards daily. Maybe it was when I was in the thick of my first year as a girl scout leader. I have done my best to treat that particular gig as a job, and it has paid off in so many ways, both for me and for the girls. Maybe it was when I bit the bullet and entered my son in a lottery for a cooperative nursery school - easy on the budget compared to full time daycare, but definitely NOT something I could have ever done while working full time. And then when he actually got in - I didn't even think twice about enrolling him, effectively sealing our fate until at least May 2013, because there's no way I can work and participate in this co-op with him at the same time.
Sometimes I DO think about it in terms of that phone call, the one that came from the membership coordinator of the co-op to let us know that Jacob had "won" a spot in the lottery. Before the call came, our future seemed so nebulous, so up in the air. I had qualms about ANY preschool that wasn't our beloved but expensive day care center that had been so good to my daughter, and although I'd loved the co-op's teacher as soon as I met her and was impressed by how open and friendly everyone seemed, some part of me felt like I was betraying the wonderful people who had been such an integral part of our family when I was still working outside the home. I almost dreaded finding out whether he got a spot or not, because I didn't know what I wanted the answer to be.
And then, with a ring of the phone, he was in. And I was immediately and irreversibly ELATED. All the uncertainty melted away. It was the Right Thing for him, for us.
And suddenly, being at home was the Right Thing for him, for us - FOR ME.
Yeah. For me, too. Believe me, I'm just as surprised as you are.
Right after I left my job, I felt like an imposter. Last summer the kids and I would be at the park or the pool or the store or something like that, and I'd feel like the police were going to burst out of the bushes and bust me for playing hooky - THIS WOMAN IS SUPPOSED TO BE AT WORK! WHAT IS SHE DOING OUT HERE ON A WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON? Of course, nobody ever gave us a second glance. Inside though, I was filled with fear - fear that I'd made the wrong choice, for the kids, for myself - for all of us. The way I felt after I got that phone call set me free from all that uncertainty in some way that I didn't really identify at the time, but it's so clear in hindsight.
That was last winter. On Monday, my sweet boy begins preschool, two mornings a week. Here he is with the tote bag he painted with his teacher for bringing home his artwork and other treasures.
It will probably be a bumpy transition for both of us, but we'll get the hang of it, and we'll come out just fine on the other side.
I no longer feel like an imposter in my own life, which is just so liberating. As long summer days with my kids fade into the structure and constant run around of the school year, I am strangely at peace with the hustle and bustle. Planning for scouts, learning the co-op ropes, driving the gymnastics car pool... Life is hectic, but oh so rewarding.
I haven't looked for a job in months and months... because I'm finally settling in to the one I have now. And I couldn't love it more.
