What you have to do

I am starting this post against my better judgement... why write when you aren't what sure you have to say?

Maybe I am taking a page from my friend Pauline's blog www.paulinesblogsstupid.blogspot.com
 but I feel the need to write about where I am.

Pauline, on the cusp of 40... or maybe more, Pauline?  Anyway, Pauline had some questions about her station in life.  Is everyone supposed to be satisfied with what they are doing?  Is anyone satisfied with what they are doing?

I remember waking up in a dead sweat one night my senior year in college... it had occurred to me, in sleep no less, that I could end up in a trailer park.    What was a degree in Classics really going to afford me?  I has studied to learn, not to earn some high paying job.  Now, weeks before graduation, I began to question the intelligence of my decision.

Unfortunately, unlike my classmates in classics, I was not an intellectual.  Academia held no space for me.  What to do, what to do....

I fell into my position in life... I drank and danced and charged and paid, a little bit, and found myself in Washington, DC, surrounded by bright young things.  I conned my way into their midst.

And right when I had given up on love, committed myself to a sketchy occupation, I found Tim.

Yet.  Yet.  Where was I now?  Alone.  With a cat.  In Austin, Texas.  Whiling away my hours at the Austin Museum of Art taking watercolor classes.  Cooking dishes beyond my comprehension.  Volunteering for the most needy non-profit.  But what was I DOING?

And now.  And now, here I am .... raising two children, sheltering a dog and two cats and feeding a husband.  I am foreman for our new addition and a conversationalist blogger and in mourning for my dearly departed grandmother.

They don't tell you that; while they are bandaging your knee, making your dinner, washing your clothes.  Your parents don't tell you that they don't really know what they are doing.  They don't mention that they haven't gotten it all figured out.

You know that moment that you are waiting for?  That event which will lead you to believe that you are an adult?  Guess what?  Keep waiting.

I've married, and birthed.  I've buried and invested.  I've worked and I've begged.  I've parented and I've bought and charged and cooked and cleaned and paid taxes and volunteered.  There is no magic moment.  Get on with living.  Because living will get on without you.

Way to go Pauline.  Your blog is brilliant.  Keep writing.  I know I will.