Light in the Dark.

According to my pock-marked memory, my dad held at least 5 jobs, sequentially, during the time I was growing up. Every few years, he seemed to move on to a new job, eventually landing someplace he retired from.

My mom variously was engaged in the following classes or hobbies:

bread-making

cake decorating

special effects make-up

Mary Kay-style beauty product sales

crocheting

knitting

part-time make-up artist

The closet became filled with half-finished projects and tools of a trade long abandoned. 

My dad also told me a few years ago that he rarely finished projects he began around the house (the wallpaper all done, except for that spot there; the fireplace paint stripped, but not re-stained) because of his own childhood lesson that if you finished something it could be criticized.

And I wonder what of this I’ve “inherited” through observation.

I've realized the Fulcrum idea only works if I’m earning more per hour and working fewer hours. It doesn’t, and won’t work, if I’m only working fewer hours!

I feel a little afraid today. Afraid that the time I’m intending to “buy” for myself will be eaten up by odd jobs in order to cull a living.

I guess I mention my parents’ work habits because I’m afraid that I’m like them. And can certainly see the seeds and small shoots of their behavior in my own.

Molly doing theater. Molly doing all organic cooking. Molly in a band. Molly wanting to take math classes, tutor kids, fly a plane. Molly quitting another job. Again.

And.

I’m not sorry I’m doing this.

It’s funny. Last year, playing bass in a band, I said I was finally living out a teenage dream I’d never let myself have. If I were more honest with myself then, I would have studied theater in college or engaged in it then. I would have tried the magpie lifestyle then. I would have held odd jobs, instead of the immediate office jobs.

I would have been a mildly responsible but creatively engaged young adult.

But, I wasn’t. That wasn’t my experience, and that wasn’t allowed. Coloring outside the lines was not allowed in my house. Or so I understood it.

I thought last night about this past year+ since returning to work post-cancer. About how I’ve been doing the things that a teen and 20something would do. It logically does follow that my professional work pattern would change, if I’m sort of going back to live the kinds of experiences I’d aged myself out of then.

And perhaps I’ll do them differently than I would have at 20 or 25. Perhaps trying to live outside of the lines at 33 is easier, or more grounded. I don’t know. But I do see that I seem to be veering toward a life that a lot of young people live, as if I’m reclaiming a lost youth, a lost innocence and curiosity and naïveté.

Is it “fun” to about to launch into the unknown? Well, yes and no. It’s fun to feel engaged in the creative world and think outside the box. It’s less fun to know the realities of salary requirements and health coverage and car payments and also try to think outside the box.

I don’t know. I don’t know what will happen. I know I have more work to do, more actual sitting down and developing a plan to do. And I think I’m going to have to reach out for help from folks to help me hold the space to do that.

It’s funny. (I keep on saying that! But, this all amuses the observer part of me, I’ll tell you!) Over a year ago, I sat with two women who helped me form a game-plan for alternative classes I could facilitate.

About 6 months ago, I sat with a different pair of folks, who helped me develop a different plan for an alternative after-school program.

I’ve been dipping my toe into these waters, and have subsequently thrown my arms up into their faces and said, But I don’t know, I don’t know enough and it’s too hard and I don’t have the tools.

I’ve abandoned this line of thinking as many times as I’ve lit the fires in the eyes of my friends, who’ve said, Molly, this is totally possible.

So, I guess it’s time for me to dig my notes out of the closet like my mom's half-finished quilts. Time to breathe deeply and let myself live the life I’ve consistently told others I want to live.

It’s also time for me to call those friends back in and have them hold my hand as I sort through those notes and make moves in this direction. Because, as I’ve said before, Sometimes I need someone else to hold the lantern of hope.