Today is Jack and my sixth wedding anniversary. We romantically celebrated the day apart - he was in Maryland working on a grad school paper and I spent the day at my parents' house with Petal doing not much of anything. Our plans to hit a local children's museum with Bridge and her kids were foiled when we found out that the museum didn't open until noon. Note to children's museums - that is not exactly conducive to attracting the nappers in your target market.
I've been feeling kind of down the past few days and spending this day away from Jack has really added to it. When we booked flights for Petal and I to spend the Thanksgiving holiday here in New England, I wanted to come back to Maryland today for a reunion. But Jack has less than a month to go before he earns his Master's degree and he really needs to spend any time that he is not at work cranking out those last few papers. Petal and I can be a bit of a distraction, so off we were shipped.
Much of my angst o'er the past few days has been the cloudiness obscuring my view of what the next few years, and, after that, the rest of my life hold in store. I have always derived great comfort from picturing the future and imaging my plans, grand or small, floating down from the ether to become the new present. But lately I feel directionless. The question of whether or not to have another child eats at me night and day. I won't go into all the pros and cons here, but suffice to say that there are many and that both Jack and I regularly drift from one side of the fence to the other, sometimes in harmony and sometimes at the poles of the spectrum.
The nagging question of where my professional life is going is there to pick up the slack if my mind lets the family planning issue fade to the background for a few moments. And when I entertain career aspirations that exceed beyond the fifteen hours/week working remotely that I currently put in, I am faced with the cliche question plaguing every woman in my age and income bracket - how to "have it all?" How to have a fulfilling career and also soak up every second of Petal's (and the theoretical second pea's) childhood, all while still having enough personal time for physical fitness, a fulfilling social life, romance, travel to inspirational places, my voracious reading habit, quality time with the extended family, and what I sometimes think is my one true love, sleep.
Until next time...
