Finding Passion

If you know me or know anything about me, you know I'm a mover.  My closest friends know that it's likely upon each visit to our home that I will have rearranged or redecorated at least one room.  Others know I get through life with a to-do list, grocery list, lists of lists, etc... to keep me motivated to get things done and never stop moving.

I haven't really done the whole "career" thing (and frankly don't want to).  I've been a social worker, a nanny, worked at a coffee shop, an antique store, multiple restaurants, and currently a brewery.  I've been a writer, a craft vendor and my husband's photography assistant.  I've volunteered and raised funds for the Free Store, 2 separate preschools and am president of my neighborhood association. I've joined running clubs, mommy groups, and craft guilds.  I've been a homeschool advocate, a magnet advocate and a co-op advocate.  I've been a church-goer, a church-hater, and indifferent.  And I just keep waiting on that one calling to stick.

Until yesterday.

I dropped Ryan off at the airport yesterday morning around 5:45am.  I was actually quite glad to be up and alone, knowing I had roughly 3 hours until my kids were up and moving.  While we normally listen to the Oompa Loompa song, classical music, or 5 Little Monkeys on repeat, I took full advantage of my alone time to listen to NPR.  There was a story about a guy who was looking for his passion, his calling- whatever it was he was made to do.  So, he sat down with some economists and they asked him questions: "Do you want financial success?"  "Are you looking to be more humanitarian and give away the money you make?"  "What does the 50-year-old you want?"

They worked through these questions and I assume they came to a conclusion, but in my mind, I bypassed that part.  The questions and the process was what caught my attention.  What do I want for my life?

I love, love, LOVE going to thrift stores and listening to music- through headphones because good GOD if I have to listen to Katy Perry, followed by Maroon 5, followed by Matchbox 20 ever again, I'm leaving the country- and scrounging through junk to find treasures.  I love yard sales.  I love quiet days where I can sit and draw or write at my dining room table.  I love making vintage gift baskets and greeting cards.

And the natural next step is answering the question: "So what do I do with this?"  I guess I always have this assumption that having a passion equals making a career and finding financial success.  And then I realized I had it all wrong.

When I went to college, good ol' Liberty University- yeah, go on, judge me- I would take classes for all the random pre-reqs and whatever major I just happened to fall into. (Actually, that happened.  Junior year I just saw which major I could pick based on the classes I'd taken and landed on B.S. in Psychology with emphasis on Marriage and Family Therapy.)  I remember sitting in a Family Dynamics class early one morning and thinking "Why am I here?  All I want to do is be a mom.  I honestly don't see myself ever 'working' or having a career.  It's not for me."  But, I ignored it, and finished my degree none-the-less.  (While pregnant.  Out of wedlock.  At Liberty.  Suck it.)

I just assumed that that's what you do.  You go to college, you get a job, you live happily ever after.  I kept trying to figure out how to use my skills to build a life for myself.

And that's what I realized yesterday that I'd been doing.  I have been so unbelievably fixated on finding a life path, a passion, that I've been neglected what I'd been called to do all along: be a mom.  Phew.  It was such a relief.

After reading books, such as Peaceable Revolution Through Education, and blogs, such as Boho Baby Bump, and other materials, I have realized that all these other things I'm good at or simply enjoy can be so much more fulfilling if I enjoy them with my children, calmly and peacefully (for the most part).  I can teach them how to make things for others, as my mother taught me.  I can teach them how to find what you're good at and master it.  I can teach them that "success" does not mean a 9-5.

My passion truly is and has to be my children.  What if instead of me chasing and illusive dream and my children following behind me, I stayed beside my kids, working my dreams into parenting?  What if I allowed my children to yell and feel frustrated and help them work through it instead of begging them to sit down and be quiet so mommy can work?  What if I stopped sending them in the backyard alone (all the time, anyway), and went out with them and experienced their world?  What if I let go of myself, just a little, and held on to them more?

It's hard.  Parenting is no damn joke.  Working, staying home, having a mix of both as I do... it's all hard.  Babies, toddlers, school-aged kids, it's all hard.  But it's also beautiful.  I want my passion to be finding that beauty. I want my passion to be intentionally engaging my children in what I'm doing as they engage me in what they are doing.  I want to show them that finding a passion is better when it's shared.  And, heck.  I want to show that to myself as well.