Em and the Possibilities There are no guarantees in life…only the possibilities

The last bastion of The Life I’d Planned for my family is crumbling in front of me. I am only one Mama, and I cannot do it all.

See, when a relationship shatters the only thing you can think of is keeping things as close to the status quo for the children. I was an at-home mom in the time Before the Breakup and I stayed at home for as long after the breakup as I could. Longer than I should have, perhaps. It was bad enough that I had to leave him, leave our apartment, leave our life. (And the later insult to injury – that he’s stayed out of our lives.) At least I was still there.

Depressed, hormonal, pregnant/nursing, and out of my flippin mind – but there.

Getting out of the house was necessary for my mental health, I discovered. I went to school and remembered what it was like to talk to people who have actually read the same books I have. I went to work and remembered what it was like to interact with people.

I felt guilty because I wasn’t home with the kids and I enjoyed myself.

Over the last two years of school and year of work I did my best to continue schooling the boys at home. My daughter elected to attend public school for high school and I let her go.

I let her go. Good god that sounds pathetic, dunnit? Like I just threw her under the bus or something.

The plan was to work my scheduled hours, school the boys on my days off, hang out with the local homeschool group at the park and generally enjoy being with my kids. The hanging out hasn’t happened more than a few times – if I’m not scheduled to work when the group gets together there’s laundry and shopping. And Writing. And Homework.

And. And. And.

It’s time for me to change jobs – time for me to exercise something other than the absolute bottom level of my skillset. The job I have is perfect in that it does not require a lot of thought. The job I have is horrible in that it does not require a lot of thought. I’ve stayed in this job, knowing that I can do more, make more money, that I Am More Than This because my supervisor has done really well by me. She has gone out of her way to work with me around my school schedule. She has become more than my supervisor, she is also a friend.

And I’ve stayed in this job because I was afraid to shake my own tree, afraid to take on something different that would detract from my studies. Afraid to change my schedule AGAIN and wreak (temporary) havoc on our lives.

Much like holding out and hoping that some miracle would allow me to continue staying home with my children, I’ve held onto homeschooling. Obviously I’m not going to change everything all at once since that’s usually an invitation to failure. Changing jobs will be first, then we’ll evaluate. I don’t want to give up homeschooling my boys.

But I can’t hold back the entire family because of that want.