On the joys of alter-employment and manifesting what you desire

So here I (still) am – 23 days and counting from my last day of “gainful” employment.

I had intended to blog every day, thinking that I would have nothing but TIME on my hands – time I had previously spent doing a very demanding job…I think I underestimated myself, and my family, who have very quickly sucked me into the vortex of “MOOOOOOOOOM”.

For two and a half years now, we have lived in this house –

this is the house that we moved into when I got a “real” job – our “dream house” that had enough bedrooms for everyone – the house with a dishwasher, a dining room, storage for our stuff, and a big lovely yard.  I have gone to work every day, and I’ve put the things that need done on lists – to do after work, on the weekends, and eventually.

Eventually seems to have caught up with me.  Here I am, at “eventually” – looking at the ripped out screens, the light fixtures the kids have managed to break, the spots on the carpets, the bent hinges on the cabinets, the blackberries that have taken over the back of our yard, the shed that needs to be organized.  I have not enumerated all things on my list, but these are the ones that stand out, because these are the ones I walk by, all day long, between getting my kids off to school, doing my morning job hunt, deciding what I’m making for dinner, before I teach the preschooler today’s letters and review the letters we’ve learned in the last two weeks.  I am endlessly making lists – groceries to buy, cleaning products to refill, people to see that I haven’t had time in the last three years to see.

In short?  I’m still working.  And realizing that in most ways, I was working two jobs before (at least) – by day, a social worker, and by night, the head of my household.  I was doing one job all the way – and the other…well, I was doing that MOST of the way…my house was clean enough, the laundry was done – I’d enlisted the kids to help out, and for the most part, our team took care of the details.

This is where I start to struggle with all of my feminist ideals, though – having it “all” – being a partner, a mother, a woman with a career, a friend, a daughter, a mindful member of my community…how did I think that I would have the time to do all of those things the way that I wanted them to be done – PERFECTLY??  I have been fighting an uphill battle to be all I can be in all of the roles I have taken on…and now here I am, one role down, and I feel like I have been stripped of who I am (and worked so hard to be).

So we get to the manifesting piece.

While I’m working in my garden, planting the food my family will eat this summer and beyond, I am thinking about generativity.  I am considering what I want my legacy to be – what I want to DO for my community and the people in it.  How will I pay the bills and feel like I am doing something meaningful?  Do I have it in me to continue to do social work, after the last BEAST of a boss that I had basically told me that I don’t have what it takes?  Do I have the energy to help others solve their problems while also tending to my own somewhat complicated family?

I find myself going down this path and I realize that I am not in this moment…I am not revelling in the dirt, and the sunshine, and the MOMENT…and I let that go.  I abandon that self-doubt, and remind myself that I am busy manifesting what I most desire – my purpose, and fulfilling it – and I just let it go.

There are so many things that I can worry about right now – the kids’ grades, their social lives, their seeming lack of commitment to their own success, whether or not they are flossing their teeth…or taller order things, like “holy shit, what are we going to do when the money runs out?”  Because eventually, our savings will be depleted.  And it will be time to go back to school.  And they will have a billion things that we need to purchase, and if I am not working, how will I do that?

But there it is again – INSIDIOUS, isn’t it??? – that doubt.  It is ludicrous to think that someone with my skill and ability to find an answer will still not be working in September.  And in the meantime, holy crap – it’s summer!!!  Long days, my garden growing, time for my friends and family and the million projects that will make me feel like I have actually addressed my lists.  I will be able to camp with my children this year when we want to – not once a month, considering how much personal time I’ve accrued.  It’s ALL personal time right now!!!

No time for this negativity.  Sure, this is difficult.  Sure, I’m not SURE of what my next step is going to be…or what it will bring for my family.  But whatever it is, right now I am building up the cosmic energy that is going to produce my “next”.  So with all of the happiness and contentment I can muster, I greet each day – and seek to make it meaningful.  I have been handed the opportunity to re-group, to center…to actually interact with my children, and watch them grow.

And when it is time, the right thing for me will be there.  I will be handed back my clipboard, and legal pads, and files, and my crazy calendar…and I will start over.  Refreshed.

In the meantime – I am washing everyone’s shoes.  Cuz I’m a ninja.

Social Work…er, parenting in a socially responsible way – Also known as Lincoln destroys the garden

So today marks one week since I last worked.

I have planted a garden, like I do every year – but this year, it will be different, because I am not running home from work madly, cooking, cleaning, doing the mom gig for about 1.25 hours before we start bedtime and bathtime and dinner…sometimes even in that order.

This year, I will be able to take care of my own garden.

In social work, we all too often forget what that means.  Taking care of ourselves becomes secondary to taking care of others; our clients, our communities, our families, our homes – our own mental health…instead, we document, and report, and try to prove that what we are doing is WORKING! so that we can continue to have a job.  We study, we read, we make and receive after hours phone calls trying to find solutions for others, trying to help them have a chance, attempting to patch up the constant leaks that their poverty make inevitable.

I could go off on a tangent about all of that, but I suspect that anyone in a position in this field understands, and it goes without saying.

So today, a week free of the insurmountable obstacles of bureaucracy and other such b.s., I decide to garden.  I’m still up at seven thirty, getting kids to school and caffeinating.  I spend the morning putting out my necessary networking feelers – letting people I’ve come to respect professionally know that I am now free, signing up for workshops and volunteer gigs – seeking guidance from teachers and community people – e-mailing resumes and putting in inquiries for grad schools.  This I do every morning.  I tell Lincoln (last baby at home, four, who is the only one of my children I did not make it a priority to stay at home with) that we will be going to the park today, if he can just let me finish “working”.

He is good – he plays “Hobnopoly” with himself (a type of monopoly in which he pretends to be the banker and usually ends up making cupcakes out of the money piles).  He draws.  He sings “We are Young” to the iPod.  He then decides that it is time to garden.

So this is where the whole damn thing goes sideways.

But I don’t know that until later.

I am roused from my computer (where I am applying for energy assistance through my power company, one of the “Perks” of being unemployed officially) by the sound of wailing from the backyard.  Now this was unexpected, because I had just told him not to do anything stupid, and we reviewed the list of what “stupid” entailed, such things as CLIMBING BROKEN LADDERS utilized to support the cucumbers as they start to trail.

Turns out, he’s still four.  

FUCK…I think to myself, because it’s ok to swear when it’s self dialogue and only you can hear it.  The voices are telling me to react like my mother – a big fat WTF to the four year old, for doing what a four year old would do.  Then berating him and ruining the whole day.

Instead, I run outside, swiftly extract him from the toppled ladder, and set him on his feet.  I look him over to make sure he is ok, and he knows – he’s not even gonna cry about it now.  Because he looks like a dumb shit.  And he knows it.

This would totally work, if he was 25.

Scaling it back to four, now…I bend down, and say – “are you alright?”

He looks at me, and says – “Yeah”.  He’s embarrassed.

I say – “This is the stupid I was referencing in our conversation earlier”.

He says – “I know”.

I tell him that he can come in the house and hang out with me until his brother gets home.

I had no idea, until about half an hour ago, just how much Lincoln accomplished in my garden today.  He dug a “river” in my freshly planted and turned over and carefully sawdusted strawberries – apparently, prospectors are moving in to mine for gold and they need a way to transport their goods.  The river goes neatly THROUGH my strawberries, and I’d say that this new development has wiped out a good part of this year’s crop.  Careless developing practices have also polluted my barbeque with bark dust.  Lots of it.

Not gonna freak out.  Letting this one go.

I proceed to my gazebo, and I realize that the neatly stacked pile of garden markers are those VERY SAME garden markers that I so carefully placed next to all of my plants, to discern what was what til they actually fruited.  Except, somehow, they’ve managed to make their way OUT of the garden and onto the patio table.

Interesting.  At this point, I feel it might be appropriate to let Lincoln know that my admonition to stay out of my garden has just become an ORDINANCE.  It will be clearly posted, and strictly enforced from this point forward.

And that’s when I see my lettuce.  Lincoln has pretty decent coordination, when he wishes to.  Today, he took the day off.  He has trampled at least five of my precious, delicate little lettuce plants.  And about three cabbage.

And a squash.

Ok.

This is where I remember that we deep breathe before we turn into a total psychopath.

Ten…nine…eight…seven…shit, I can’t remember if it’s supposed to be a countdown, because I think it’s supposed to be getting further away from the event, not counting down to blast off…ONE…TWO…THREE…

This all happened before I noticed that Mr. Fancy Ladder Trick also knocked over my fence that keeps the dog from tearing up my garden.

Oh, the IRONY of that.

I can laugh about this now, and I kinda laughed about it earlier.  Because this is the nature of my life…and because I am good at fixing things when they break.  I have learned to expect BROKEN…and I still believe it is worth fixing.  I expect to repeat myself, I expect others to decide their own fate.

And sometimes, they do stupid shit.

And this, my friends, is SOCIAL WORK.  And this is PARENTING.  And I have figured out that there is a reason I am crazy.  Because between these two things, I do this all the time – the reframing, the counting, the paraphrasing, the reflecting…and I have to do it without judgment.

Today, the prospectors and the maniacal developer bringing them to town…they won.  But Lincoln will probably think twice before he climbs a rickety ladder again, and he understands the need to get back up and resolve not to make the same mistake again (or betray your embarrassment when you do).

And then the high schooler comes home and tells me that she has managed to get two referrals in two days.

That’s a conversation for another time.

On Reclaiming Motherhood: Day Two

On reclaiming motherhood: Day Two..