I Should Be...?

The melodramatic squeals and giggles oozing from children as they walked past my door on their way to school this morning were barely audible over the deafening silence emanating from my phone as it sat silently nestled in its cradle.  Oh well, I had other things to think about this morning.  Coffee in hand, I was equipped to handle whatever found itself in my path. 

The first of those things would be my part time job number 1.  PT job 1 requires my undivided attention, tests the limits of my patience, and entices my entire brain into action… for only two hours a week.  So why put myself through that for such meager money?  Because for two hours a week I am required to give something my undivided attention, test my patience (ok, who’s kidding who,  my children already "encourage" me to develop this essential life skill on a daily basis), and entice my brain into action.  A testament to either my adaptability or my gullibility, I am tutoring a college student in a course I took thirteen years ago and haven’t looked at, thought about, or remotely dabbled with since.  I also tutor another college student in another course I’ve never taken, been exposed to or have any experience in.  Crazy?  Maybe.  Capable?  Sure.  It’s dealing with numbers.  Sweet, simple numbers that blend together in melodic harmony creating music as they go.  Oh boy, the corny, over dramatic, blech-ness (new word as of right now) of that sentence made me snort my steamy cup of java out my nose… but I had to keep the sentence.  When else would I get the opportunity to talk about snorting coffee out my nose?  

Before heading out for my morning brain crunch, I had social obligations to fulfill.  Yes, that’s right, no day can fully begin without first checking email and then checking in with various social media.  This morning, a friend’s update was ‘Stay true to yourself.”  Small words, big meaning.

I was thinking about this update on my way to PT job 1, and again on the drive home.  While searching frantically (or passively frantically, if that’s possible) for a job, I’m finding it very easy to get caught up in the emotions of the experience.  Applying to job after job, only to be met with the emptiness of nothing, my competitive-self began to step in and spew gray matter in all directions.  I had been challenged.  Being presented with the cold, hard fact that my chosen career number 3 was not currently available to me, I forgot why I was no longer in career 1 or 2 and began to aggressively pursue re-entering either of them, just to show the world that I could.  Stubborn, competitive me.

I was a teacher in career number 3, before we moved to this delicious land covered in rows of over-sweet grapes preparing themselves to become the delicious nectar of next year.  Ah yes, while I may have left a career behind, I have established a new hobby of collecting delicious samples of locally-fermented-grape-juice-in-a-bottle, and will never complain about it.  Unfortunately, in this ever-productive part of the country, Xavier Roberts seems to have a cabbage patch field harvesting teachers in abundance , leaving more B.Ed’s in the unemployment lines than there are vines on the hillside.  Alas, I will have to wait my turn for a classroom.  In the meantime, I will continue to sample the nectar.

Few people have the opportunity presented to them to truly take the time to find not only what they WANT to be doing, but what they SHOULD be doing.  I realize I am in the minority in this land.  I’m eager to find my fourth career, not because I’m worried about feeding my family, but because I’m worried about my gray matter becoming mush.  You know, the old use it or lose it adage.  Ideally, yes, career number 3 suited me.  But in this land of fertile soil, hidden in the beauty of the land, there must be something I SHOULD be doing.   (And please, dear husband, don't say the dishes... there's always tomorrow for that.)