Why is it that I am 25 years old and yet I don't know what I want to do with my life? I know, I am still young, but by the time I get my degree I will be pushing THIRTY (the horror!) and quite frankly, that sounds old. So yes, at 25 I am slightly freaking out that I don't know what I want to do with my life. I am a mom and a wife, but I have always known that I wanted more than that in my life. For some women, that's enough. For me, I have always said I wanted to raise my kids until the youngest hit kindergarten and then I would go off and work and have that self fulfillment. I remember the life of being a housewife before we had kids when I couldn't find a job on Guam and it was B-O-R-I-N-G. So there is no way that I could just sit at home while the kids are at school all day. Besides that, I want to be productive. I want to contribute to our family in a monetary way, I want to contribute to our retirement, to our life, to our finances. And most importantly, I want to be happy and fulfilled and having a career, in addition to being a kick-ass mom, will let me have that.
I always thought I wanted to be a teacher. First of all, it's the perfect schedule for a mom. You get the weekends, the breaks and the summers off with your kids. You are home in the evenings with them to eat dinner together as a family. And besides that, it's just something I've always wanted to do. Education interests me and teaching children, impacting someone's life has a huge appeal to me. But recently, as I've started to get more serious about going back to school, I've begun to consider other options. First and foremost, I want to help people. And most of all, I want to help children. I want to have a job that I LOVE, but one that makes a difference in peoples' lives. Yes, almost every job out there has the potential to touch people, but I do think there are certain jobs that touch people on a larger scale and in different ways.
So I've been thinking about the medical field and how it has always held my interest. I am seriously considering nursing school with a specialty in pediatric nursing, eventually becoming a Pediatric Nurse Practioner. I have thought about working in the NICU or the PICU in hospitals, but those shifts are twelve hours and I don't think I'm willing to do that. Ideally I would love to be a NP in a doctor's office. But if that doesn't happen, can I be happy working in a hospital doing crazy shifts? I don't know. I want to be there for my kids. I want to be there for EVERYTHING. Every soccer game, every dance recital, every broken heart, every school play and every smile. I know this is never possible as a working parent, but I want to be there as much as possible. So this is where it gets tricky: finding that balance between happiness in a career and happiness as a mother. My first priority is being a mother of course and I NEVER NEVER NEVER want my kids to look back and see a void in their lives and remember times when I wasn't there or things I didn't do.
What to do, what to do. This is just a glimpse into my mind as of late and the things I've been pondering. As Richard embarks on his last college course, the time is drawing nearer for me to get the ball rolling on school. I am terrified but excited. Apprehensive, but curious. What does the future hold in store for me and for my family? Only time will tell...
(by the way, I do know how to write paragraphs, but for some reason when I publish my posts they just clump together in a big run on paragraph. Ughhhh.)
1 comment:
I would vote for teacher, but I am biased on that one. I can totally see you as a nurse, it would suit you well. The hours and time is the key. I would think you would have to absolutely LOVE it for it to be worth it. Good luck with the decision, it's a toughy!!
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