To Be

I finished my last project on Thursday of last week. Friday I took the kids to Great America. It was great. I could enjoy the feeling of having nothing I had to do with no guilt because I've been justifying my existence on this planet and in this family by Earning. Monday was good too. I had errands to do. Lots of stuff I had to get done. Again I could justify my existence by Doing. Today I woke up with no work, no real plans, and my first instinct was to start scouring the job postings. I tried very hard to resist that urge, but failed. Then the draggy desperate feeling I got when I thought about applying for the jobs that I was qualified for set off an internal alarm system.

I started the summer off with this great sense of liberation. The world was my oyster. The kids were without camps, I was going to be out of work, Steve was between big projects. We would go places, be spontaneous, take a road trip. Then I got slammed with work. Since June 17th (my birthday) I have been wading through projects, feeling this vague sense of loss. Where did my oyster go? I promised myself I'd get to it when I was done with the last project. Now here I am at that point finally, and rather than take a deep breath and enjoy my freedom, my first instinct was to jump right back into the fray.

So here is what I'm NOT going to do. I am not going to apply for any jobs. I am not going to make any calls to drum up more work. Today, and for an indefinite amount of time, I am just going to be. I am going to enjoy what I have and what I am. What I have is a husband who will support me financially and emotionally in absolutely any crazy scheme I come up with, money-making or not. Steve is my single greatest asset. I have time too. Time to figure out what I want to do with myself, be it full-time mother to my kids, single greatest asset to my husband, blogger, biologist, or some other choice I haven't thought of yet. So this is me, stopping to just let life unfurl in front of me.