I have found myself at a point in parenting/life where I feel uncertain of the future. While the kids are still at a point where I am needed and important, they are also gaining independence every day, and in some ways, so am I. This is at once liberating and terrifying. I have been faced with the possibility of finding my own path, really for the first time in almost fourteen years.
Prior to having children, I was a child myself. I was 23, somewhat fresh out of school, and not in a "career". In the first year Kevin and I were living together and prepping for marriage - our first year out of school - I was doing jobs that I knew were not my calling, in an effort to have the freedom to plan a wedding, etc. Post wedding? I thought that once we had been in our new state for a year, I would go back to school. But instead, in the first year of our marriage, we welcomed our first, beautiful daughter.
As an adult who is now nearing forty years of life, I am struggling to find the confidence to continue a separate path, while maintaining my family. I feel old, under qualified, looked down upon. While many of the things I feel are probably not echoed in the beliefs of those around me, those feelings are still complex to overcome.
I made the choice to attempt to buoy myself. I have put three words on my mirror, to recite and ingest each time I happen to look up - Kindness, Engage, Believe. My hope is that I will remember that the first, most important thing, is kindness - to my husband, my children, perfect strangers, and most importantly right now, kindness to myself. Engage, because when I feel overwhelmed by the process of embracing this change, my tendency leans more towards hiding away than engaging in the day to day. And Believe? Well. I don't think that requires an explanation.
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