Over the last few weeks I’ve had the honor of getting to know my children, again (and enjoy them). My husband and I have fallen back into love, and I’ve been able to take a good hard look at the direction my life has been going and reevaluate. With having a job, I wouldn’t have been able to have the opportunity to do any of this. Life goes so quickly, days turn into years and before you know it, thing you wanted to do have now become things you thought you wanted to do. We change our mindset and goals constantly to adjust to life. Why can’t life adjust to our mindset and goals?
I feel urgency to find a job and support my family, but for the first time, it’s a picky urgency. No longer am I being driven by desperate blindness into the next job that will pay the bills, but instead I’m looking at every opportunity that comes along with a speculation and a new set of rules. *Does this job allow time for my family? * Does this job provide something I can get excited about? * Does this job seem like something I can turn into a career? I’m not saying I’m different from anyone else that’s unemployed. I think I’m just refusing to let the situation of my life determine any longer where I go. Instead, where I go will determine my situation.
Quick side note I observed today. My youngest has, for awhile now, referred to my side of the car as the “elephant” side and daddy’s side as the “dragon” side. It doesn’t matter what side we’re on, if I’m sitting in it, it’s the elephant side. I try to see it as a 4 year old, that he’s not calling me fat, so today I asked why he does that. I got a very simple, “because mommy, you’re the ellie and daddy’s the dragon”. In our house, as most houses, our kids have grown up with what some call “woobies” or “snuggies”, ours call them “ellies”. It started with my youngest daughter and a stuffed elephant we bought for her when she was born. The elephant was about the same size as a 12 month old. One night, I think she was about 4-5 months old, I went to check on her in her crib (which is also where we kept the elephant. When I looked over the edge of her crib, all I saw were two little feet poking out from under this (huge at the time) stuffed animal she had pulled on herself. I panicked and tried to remove it, thinking she possibly was suffocating her. She woke up and immediately grabbed for the elephant again, pulling it down on her so she could sleep. I found her in this position often from then on, and her and her “ellies” became inseparable, it was her security. We had bought my son an “ellies”, and even though it’s a horse, he still calls it ellies. I think I discovered today that he calls daddy’s side the dragon side because he knows that daddy will protect him, no matter what, even if he has to breathe fire. Mine is the ellies side, the security blanket and comforter. When I need to put things into perspective, maybe I should talk to my 4 year old more often.