At a Crossroads

For the past few years I've felt like I'm at a crossroads in my life. I guess this is a normal feeling for women in our world. It's that feeling of being torn in two directions, one toward my family, the other toward my career.

I have ambition. That's not a problem. I've always been ambitious, wanting to be the best at what I do and move up to the next level. I want to move up the so-called ladder. I'm not sure where I want to get to, but I know I want to get out of the trenches and move up to something else. Maybe as a principal, maybe more district level. Maybe get a Ph.D and move into research or policy. There are all kinds of possibilities out there.

On the other hand, I want to be my daughter's mom. I want to be home with her. I want to take her to the park and the zoo. I want to go to Mommy and Me classes and sing songs and play games. I want to watch her walk and talk and learn to run and jump.

Last night I told Adam that I want to be a stay-at-home mom. I've been considering an opportunity to work with my principal in an internship style administrative credential program next year. The program sounds great, and the opportunity is outstanding, but I feel like it's not the right time for me. As much as I want to move up that career ladder, the ladder can wait. Lily can't. I can put my advancement on hold for 5 years and pick back up close to where I leave off, but I can't put Lily on hold. I can't regain what I'll miss if I'm not around.

I just hope it's the right decision.

Welcome

I've tried having blogs before, and it's never really worked out. This time I hope to change that.

First, let me introduce myself.

I'm a part-time working mom, part-time SAHM with a beautiful 1 year old daughter. There's a part of me that loves being a part of both worlds, but also a part of me that feels like a bit of an outsider in both. I love that I can take my daughter to the park two mornings each week, but sad that more people there know her than me because she's usually there with her babysitter. I love that I still get to work and be part of the culture at the high school where I work, but since I'm not here all the time, and rushing out the door at the end of the day, I miss a lot of the fun activities that make teaching worthwhile.

I have a wonderful, if sometimes exasperating, husband (aren't they all!) who probably won't be much of a figure here since he's very private and probably won't want to be mentioned much. We'll see how I make that work.

In my work life I teach 12th grade English at a small charter school designed to get underprivileged kids into college. Far from an easy task. I spent much of today lecturing them about how they need to take advantage of even little bits of down time at home to get homework and reading done. We'll see if that sinks in. I have my doubts. I love teaching, but it's exhausting. Especially the grading. I don't like grading at all. I'm actually applying for an administrative credential program to start next year. We'll see how that goes. I think it might be a good change for me.

I'm not really sure what form this blog will take. I kept thinking that maybe in order to have a successful blog I need to have some sort of focus, a catch if you will, something to set me apart from everyone else. For now though, I think my goal is just to write every day. I like to write, but find that in my life now I have little opportunity to just put my thoughts down. Instead I usually just lecture poor Adam until he can't take it anymore (especially when it's in the middle of a football game).

Here goes nothing...