Tag: Hopes and dreams

What to do with this butterfly mind

July 6th, 2012

When I looked toward this summer back in the spring- looking forward to a summer of not working, not scheduling, not having anything that absolutely had to be done except eating and wearing sunscreen – I saw an expanse of potential. Potential reading, writing, playing with the kids. Most importantly, potential for figuring out what I’m going to be when I grow up. My 40’s-ish lane mate on the Master’s swim team laughed when I told her that one and said, “Yeah, good luck with that.” She’s still working on that, too.

So here I am, with these carefree days laid out in front of me, each day a new adventure in no-plans, and rather than feeling free to glide on the wind, my mind is a-flutter, like a butterfly beating its wings against the walls of a butterfly-catcher’s net. Apparently, I don’t do well with no-plans.

I’m restless. My mind is restless. I’m all over the place, thinking about nutrition (and a possible career as a nutrition counselor), exercise (and a possible career as a personal trainer), personality types (and a possible career as a career counselor), my work with Team In Training (and a possible career as a recruiter for VA Tech), print and online media (and a possible career in communications). I’m reading (and thinking about a possible career as a writer, an editor, an English professor). I’m reading about reading. I’m reading about writing. I’m jumping from one thing to another and then saying, “The hell with it!” and taking the kids to the pool.

I keep reminding myself of the StrengthsFinder assessment I took, and the epiphany I had when I took it: the qualities I usually beat myself up about (because I do them incessantly) are actually my biggest strengths. It turns out that I do them incessantly because they come naturally to me. Because I do them without realizing I’m doing them, then catch myself after I’ve been consumed with them for hours on end. Like devouring information. And thinking. And while I recognize that my flitting poses a problem to committing to a career path, I have learned to embrace flitting as one of my strengths as well (especially when it is called adaptability), and that it can serve beautifully in a role that is dynamic and incorporates newness and variety.

So though I’m restless, and my mind is banging its wings against its cage of not-knowing, I keep reminding myself that this is part of my process. And that’s okay. I devour. I think. I fear commitment. And if I want to choose well, I should not rush the process, as much as I would like to. All the devouring, and thinking, and especially the resistance to committing, are helping me explore my choices with depth, and attention, and a healthy dose of reality.

In the meantime, I play with my kids and I (occasionally) write. And hope that at some point in this unstructured, wildly free, no-plans summer, my mind will alight on an answer.
One last move

June 7th, 2012

I should be preparing for our epic, holy-crap-I-can’t-believe-this-is-real move from Minnesota to Virginia right now, but I decided to start a blog instead. This move has been such a long time coming, I just don’t know what to do with myself. The kids and I leave on Monday, and my mind is a-jumble. This will be our second cross-country move (we saved the cross-country moves for when we had kids – we’re smart like that), our fifth state-to-state move, and our ninth dwelling-to-dwelling move in 15 years. The difference with this one is that it should be our last.

With every move up to this one, my husband and I have known we would probably move again. One of us was finishing a degree and then we’d move on, or “if we don’t like it here” we could always move on, or the job is temporary and then we have to move on. That next move was always on the horizon, and it was fun and adventurous and so full of possibilities when we were DINKs (double income, no kids). But now that we have children, the not-knowing has been soul-eating. Will we have to take another temporary position? Will we have to move someplace god-awful in order to get a permanent tenure track position? How will the kids handle the move(s)? What will the schools be like? When can we invest in friends that we don’t have to leave? Will we ever be able to pay off these student loans we took on when we decided, “Let’s add people to our family and then eliminate both incomes so Andrea can stay home with the kids while Brian goes back to school full time!”? (I told you we were smart like that.)

But with this move – with this move everything is different. With this move, we are going to a place we can finally put down roots and call home. We know the landscape, we know the culture, we know the food, the accent, the climate. It’s familiar. With this move, Brian has been offered an Assistant Professor position – the career goal we have been working toward all these years. Not only is it tenure track, but it’s at a highly esteemed, land-grant university in a beautiful place, near the Appalachian mountains where Brian and I began our courtship. With this move we might actually begin to pay down debt instead of accruing more of it. The kids can start friendships in elementary school that have the potential to last more than two grade years (gasp!) We can plant trees and watch them grow from sapling to full maturity. Maybe even live in a house that our kids will one day call “the house I grew up in.”

With this move, maybe we won’t have to say goodbye again.

Tag: Hopes and dreams

What to do with this butterfly mind

One last move