A Career

That's what's on my mind this morning.

Do I want to have a career someday, too?

Huh. Tough question. I had a career, and I was very good at it. Sometimes I miss it; sometimes I don't. Nowadays I feel a little too lazy to have another career. I've been spoiled by being able to do what I want with my time, whenever I want. I don't know if I'll ever be able to fit back into the schedule of the workaday world.

On the other hand, what I mostly have now is a vocation. I have motherhood. And, boy, is it a lot of work. I'm very good at that too, and I spend the majority of my hours on it. It doesn't pay well, but it's important anyway.

Like writing. Whether writing pays money or not, just the act of doing it matters. It's a practice worth having in life. It makes the world richer, and lets us taste life twice.

But I can only write for a few hours each day max. After that, my brain is fuzzy and my attention span is shot. So I have plenty of time for different work and still being a writer too.

Perhaps when I am not so busy with my vocation, I will have more energy and motivation for a career. I don't want to just sit alone in my house typing and doing errands for the next 50 years. In just a few brief years, when the girls are old enough to be independent, I will have much, much more time available to me. Even this morning, I realized anew that it takes about 2.5 - 3 hours EACH DAY just to drive offspring to and from schools. When they can drive themselves, I will have enough extra time right there to write three novels each year!

I am so very close to being a professional writer. My products are good; my output not very consistent. I'm too quick to do other things with my time. Although I'm writing now, not sleeping which I was going to do, so at least that's something. Do I want to kick it up that extra notch or two to where I write every day and really try to hit the markets? As soon as I have a few more manuscripts in hand, I could make the rounds of the writing conferences and find an agent, which I think would be the next essential step to a truly sustaining, enduring writing career.

Do I want to re-invest myself into my grant work? I do enjoy it, and I've had a refreshing hiatus for the last few months, the first real break I've taken in four or more years. I can start 2013 with a renewed focus and a devoted daily schedule. Is that the career I want?

Or do I want to go interview, maybe even train, to do something more daily and permanent? Gee. I just don't know. While I would like to earn more steady pay, part of the deal is that I'm pretty darn busy every single day right now. So I never really feel a gap where time weighs heavy on my hands. Au contraire, for me time flies by and I feel like I have to make tough decisions every hour between competing activities to do next.

No, it's the guilt that's getting to me. The feeling that maybe I should be spending my time differently. Or building more carefully towards a certain future. I don't even know what I want my future to be anymore. That's part of it. At least now I believe that I'm going to have a future. That's a step in the right direction! :)