Hello World

I'm a 30-year-old woman. I'm nearly 6 feet tall, have brown hair, brown eyes, and a lovely smile. I know, it reads like an online dating profile, right? But I am happily married- 4 years as of this September 1st. The reason I'm writing this blog is because I feel I have come to a crossroads that many women my age (or older, or younger) face. So here's the big question:

Do I work, or have children?

I know that this question has probably been hashed over many times, but I thought I'd give my perspective and maybe vent a little for people out there who are in the same situation.

So here goes. I really like kids. I'm the oldest of 3 in my family and the oldest grandchild too, so whenever the family got together for holidays, I was always the automatic babysitter. A terrible curse, I know. But we always had fun, the cousins and siblings and I. When I was old enough, I volunteered for vacation Bible school. I loved having the little ones sit in my lap. I loved to babysit in my neighborhood (although responsibility had yet to reach my adolescent hormone-soaked brain). When I finished college, I decided I wanted to work with kids outdoors. So I became an environmental educator and hopped from camp to camp for about 6 years, loving every minute of it.

Then I met the love of my life. Ok, I met him in college. He was a senior and I was a freshman. We clicked on an Appalachia Service trip and became good friends- long-distance. Somewhere around 2004, I figured out I had feelings. In 2005, we started dating and were married in 2007.

We lived in Boston. I love it there, and wish I could go back every day that I'm not there. Ok, our apartment was nice, our house mates were fabulous, our neighbors brought us home-smoked meats, the farmer's market was right around the corner...anyway. I couldn't find a job as an environmental educator there because most of those jobs were taken, or too far away from where we lived.

That's when someone suggested I be a teacher. Hey, why not? I like working with children. So I decided to try substitute teaching high school biology. Funny, because I only liked my last two years of high school and I couldn't remember much about biology at all. But I did it for 5 months, and I really liked it. And so I took the state tests and became certified by the end of the year...in Earth Science.

I applied for the Earth Science teacher position and some guy who had two Master's degrees got it instead of me. I ended up working as a paraprofessional at that school the next year, then got laid off due to budget cuts. Great! Things were shaping up to be wonderful. Pardon the sarcasm. I continued to persevere and obtained my Biology license, found another substitute job at another school, and taught there for a few months. Then I got my break. Someone in the office suggested I apply at a prestigious nearby private school. I got the job- teaching Biology, Ecology, and Anatomy. It was the best teaching experience I've had so far. I wish every school to be like it.

And then we moved.

Notice how children aren't really popping up in this story? So far, it's all about me establishing myself in my career. Yes, I loved to go 'aww' when I saw children with their mothers at church, and sometimes I'd even find myself watching "A Baby Story" on TLC. Then I'd cry when the mothers were holding their babies after birthing them. *sigh* So my dream at this point was to get my career settled, then maybe think about children in a more realistic, less dream-y sense.

The move was all right. I didn't know it at the time, but picking up heavy stuff was bad for my back. I'd herniated a disc a few years back without knowing it, and I was making it worse. But more on that later. We arrived, unpacked into a teensy-tiny little studio apartment and I immediately started looking for a house. I knew that the prices would be cheaper down here in Georgia- and they were. However, despite the cheapness, we still couldn't quite put forward enough money to afford a house. I started looking at rentals.

You know how they say 'hindsight is 20-20'. Right. In retrospect, if I had to do it again, I'd have immediately started looking for a job at a school. Then I could have worried about a house while pulling in income. Long story short, we moved into a rental house. And then the job market plunged...or perhaps it was already falling by this time. I spent my time looking fruitlessly for a job like many other people and decorating the house, watching our savings dwindle.

I spent 1 year unemployed. It was truly terrible. I feel awful for people who have been unemployed longer than that, and on less. I know you're out there, and I know what it feels like. I resorted to learning to sew to keep myself sane. I found a summer job and had back surgery to relieve the pressure on my disc. Ahh. At least one problem was taken care of.

To be continued...