SquarePeg Books

Changes are a thing. Sometimes a wonderful thing, sometimes an uncomfortable thing.

Change is the only constant in the Universe, as my Dad used to say.

Like this new WordPress editor that they’re saying they will foist off on all of us. I’m using it now, but I’m not so certain I like it.

But Change is a constant thing.

The last two years especially have shoved some very uncomfortable things in my face. Some feel I am over-reacting – things aren’t that bad. Things are actually quite stable, all things considered. Others feel that I’m finally adulting, I’m finally being a responsible person and accepting the realities of blahblahblah.

What I find unbelievably fucking irritating interesting is almost everyone is absolutely convinced that I’ve been unrealistic. No one understands what I do or why or what my expectations are. All I’ve ever gotten from the audience has been a chorus of “why” or “I don’t get it” or “you’re wasting your time.” No one listened when I tried to explain things.

Now they’re absolutely delirious with joy that I’m looking into starting a paralegal track. The last two years I’d tried to find a paying job. Any job. I was constantly being turned down as “underqualified” because I hadn’t worked in 10 years, or “overqualified” because my last job had been in an office environment. Now with COVID still hanging about, I can only afford a part-time something because the kids are entering 6th grade and while I don’t know how things are going to go down, I do know I’m going to have to be available to play substitute teacher and ride herd on Daniel and Sara at some point, most likely with little to no notice.

So back to school it is. Part-time. Only one or 2 classes a semester so I can still juggle the house and family requirements.

I cannot stress how big a blow this is to me. I enjoy learning, I do, and I’d like to think the paralegal study will help in understanding legalese a little better.

But just thinking about it is a soul-sucking, energy-zapping black hole of despair I can’t rightly figure out. I’m not going to stop writing (although you wouldn’t know it based on my writing behaviour since November 2019), but it feels…I dunno, like I’m giving up, somehow. The lassitude I’m dealing with right now is so intense, it just crushes everything inside.

I don’t think it’s a result of the paralegal path in specific – I’m pretty sure I would feel this way about anything from cosmotology to phlebotomy to astrophysics. I would enjoy learning about them (because I’m nerdy that way) but to get a job in that field just…

Am I worried about the timeclock ruling my life? Do I feel the pressure of yet MORE being added to my plate? Am I just that childish about re-joining the workforce? Looking back, I felt like such a loser when I quit my job before giving birth. I felt down, and depressed and bitter as all hell. I felt like I was losing some important part of myself, and yet, here I am, looking at retraining to re-enter the workforce, and I’m back in the same emotional dump again.

I am scared I won’t be able to write. That I won’t have time or I’ll be too tired or something. That years will go by again before I start writing again.

I wrote before I had kids while having a full time job.

It took a few years, but I started writing again I had kids and no job.

I can still write. No one but me can stop me from writing.

I’ve got a long term plan for my writing, one that I have to believe will work out in the long run. I had that plan before I had kids, and that plan is still valid now.

Just one step at a time.