We are still HERE

I've been thinking a lot lately of how I got here.

Here being this place in my life. Wife. Mother. Homemaker. Etc. All places that I really never believed I'd end up. For the record, I'm not complaining--particularly since the Boy is learning how sweet sleep can be--it's just so very different from where I thought that I would end up. And it strikes me as odd and funny how differently life turns out from what we thought it would or even what we planned it to be.

8 years ago I was on the fast track to a lively, maybe even brilliant career in academics. 5 years ago my 10 year plan was to finish my MA, move on to my PhD and then go abroad for a while. After that, a tenure track assignment at a stateside university. Not married. No kids. My cats and my books and my wonderful friends for company.

Now? No PhD. I'm working on a graduate degree in home/family/life management. Whimsy wrote about the Special Math you need to learn--yeah, that's me right now...constantly making calculations of time, weights and sizes in my head. To say nothing of the money calculations --well, if we save this amount on X then we can reapply it to Y, or better yet, if we don't spend X on Y then we can use X for Christmas, birthdays or an eventual move as necessary. Then there's the house schedule of when all the day to day crap that is necessary but tedious and time consuming is going to get done and you add to the things that I would rather be doing and it all makes for a very tired and somewhat befuddled Wife.

It's at those moments that I can't help saying to myself, "I'm just not made for this. I was Born to be an Academic!" Ask me about post colonialism, post modernism, the new critics or other theories of interpretation and I could sound like a rational, maybe even intelligent person. Ask me to go for a walk with you this afternoon and it will take me an hour of theorizing before I can say, "Yeah, I think we can maybe do that."

I suppose it's all for naught since I wouldn't change a thing. Well. I'm quite excited for the day when the Boy can actually articulate what is wrong with him when he's screaming his head off, but I'm still trying to enjoy him as he is. Don't get me wrong, I have days--many days, well, if I'm honest, MOST days when I long to be in a PhD program and learning and researching and writing about more interesting things than the management of my LIFE (for crying out loud!) but I know that if I had that then I could never have this and this--this moment, this place--it's GRAND.