A friend recently commented on my post "Working through Work," which began when another friend (no, it wasn't you) said that I had better get back to work soon or I wouldn't be able to.
The commentor (a friend and, I should point out, colleague in the field, as is the other one) gently reminded me that said friend was correct even if honesty is hard to hear.
And, as it turns out, they are both right.
Having not done anything professional or academic in 4 years, I am very aware that my time is running out. In fact, on brutally honest days, I know my time has run out. I am really no longer competitive for the kinds of jobs I used to hold. This is probably alarming, surprising, or even disappointing to people who know me from the field, people who supported me through the dissertation process (I know it is because they hint at it or tell me outright). And so that particular post was very much about working out how I felt about it. Am I sad that I have missed that career boat (by jumping off)? Do I need to swim fast to a lifeboat (of freelance or part-time work) to see if, to continue this metaphor, I can paddle around there until someone can throw me a rope and pull me to the safety of a full-time, professinal museum or academic career? Or am I okay about going for a swim, because really the water is just fine?
And as I thought about it, in that post and other discussions, I realized that though I never would have said I was okay with it, I think I am prepared to let the career float on by. Yes, I did spend years working on my dissertation. But I almost now see that as a finite project. Which I barely finished. I finished it because I had started it. Not because I needed it for something else. Which, I didn't (most museum educators do not have Ph.D.s and by then I'd already chosen that as my path). And I'm proud of the work I did on it, of the article I published, and of all the various projects I completed as a professional, full-time art historian and museum educator.
It comes down to this: I value my education and my past career experiences, as well as my role as a full-time mom, but I know I cannot do both well, though many women can. When it comes down to it--realizing that if I tried to do both now, I would find it impossible--I choose full-time motherhood over full-time career. For the children, for our family, and, yes, for me as an individual. And since I believe this, for all intents and purposes, ends the future possibility of the kind of position I had--which oddly doesn't sadden me too much--I am considering what to do, how to define fulfillment and satisfaction, now that my previous definitions of it, my previous path, that career boat is sailing away. Sure, I can still work in the field, be a professional educator without being head of education, use my art historical education, do something related to my skill set. There were part-timers and freelance educators at my first big job and I didn't understand why they would only want to work part-time; I get it now. And I know I can do that (even after 4 years). But even more interestingly, I'm developing several new skill sets, and will continue to, and I would love to see where the new ones, when combined with the others, take me. I find this all rather exhilerating and I am excited about it. That is, when I'm not terrified at the tabula rasa of my future because I never really in a billion years thought I--good little A student with a feminist bent who actually never planned on becoming a mom until the day on the train, ironically as we were headed into work, that I turned to Mama and said we should have children--would ever choose motherhood over career. But I am.
The mommy doth protest too much, methinks? I hope, indeed, I would like to believe, that I'm not just making a virtue out of a necessity. But thanks to both friends, and the others who emailed me or commented, for helping me to think about, to clarify my thoughts about, what really is a life-altering paradigmatic shift for me.
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