Scared

Last night I had a dream that i was at the doctor’s office. The nurse who was doing my initial interview looked me up on Facebook and found that I’d listed myself as a “Stay at Home Mom”. She turned her computer around to face me, pointed at the words, and gave me a look of disappointment, as if I’d failed at life by listing this as my occupation. When I woke up I thought, how strange that my subconscious would do this to me. I have always been proud of what I do with the kids. Even faced with the inevitable blank stares when I announce my full-time mommy status to an inquiring person at a company event or a dinner party, I smile with a straight back and my head held high. I am raising the next generation. I am putting my children’s needs before my own. Although certainly not glamorous, I truly believe that I am doing the most important job in the world.

Despite all this, there has been a tiny niggling worm invading my conscious, and apparently subconscious, thoughts. Now that I have been at home for six years and my children are getting more independent, is this still what I want for myself? For months I have been having the following internal debate: Which do I want more - to continue to devote all of my time to my children, or to focus my energies on something outside of my family? Am I ready to give up life as I know it? Am I ready to be done with the sweet smell of infants, the intimacy of nursing, the tiny warm body curled up next to me when I sleep? Am I ready to not be there every time my kids fall down and scrape their knees? Am I ready to dole out the responsibility of caring for my children to someone who is not in my family?

When I awoke from my dream this morning, it occurred to me that perhaps I was asking myself the wrong questions. When I was in my senior year of college, graduating with a degree in Global Studies, I spent a lot of time thinking about what I wanted to do with my life. When you graduate with a liberal arts degree you need to do this, because there is no clear career path, and for the most part those of us with BAs end up doing something pretty much unrelated to our major. So I thought and thought, and what I came up with surprised me in its simplicity. What I truly want to do, I thought to myself, is be a mom. I have wanted that for as long as I can remember, longed for it with an ache that at times completely enveloped me. And so, with the support of my incredibly accommodating husband, I got just what I always wanted. I am a mom.

The problem with motherhood as a life goal, as everyone knows, is that it is fleeting. One of the major goals of parenthood is letting your children go off into the world, carrying themselves on their own strong little legs. Motherhood was not a stretch for me. It never made me scared, and I have never thought to myself “I cannot do this. How will I do this?” What scares me is the NEXT of it. What will I do after this? So what I realized this morning was that instead of asking myself if I am ready to give up what is comfortable, I should be asking myself if I am ready to take a big risk. And then another one, and another, and another.

Risks are terrifying by nature. My children cannot reject me (at least until they are sixteen and begin to slam doors in my face), but the big bad world is full of rejection. Am I ready to face that? Am I ready to work long and hard on something I love and have everyone who sees it toss it back at me without a glance? That’s some scary stuff. Am I ready to go forward and persevere despite the possibility of rejection? I don’t know.

But how will I ever know until I try?

One morning in the future, I will wake up before everyone else in my house. I will get out of bed and look at my children sleeping. I will listen to their steady breathing in the early morning silence. I will walk to the window, open the shades, and look out. I will say to myself...

Now it is time to be scared. Now it is time to be exhilarated.