Knowing Things May Be Overrated

This is my biggest fear in life, that I’ve become obsolete. That changing diapers didn’t prepare me for filing quarterly reports. That midnight feedings didn’t prepare me for twelve hour shifts. That waving goodbye to my children while they scream and cry hysterically just so I could have date night with my husband didn’t prepare me for having to fire someone because they can’t do the job. I fear that even while I am preparing my children for their best life, even as I smile lovingly at their antics and wonder at their brilliance I myself am losing mine.

It’s not that I’m not attempting to keep current, I read the papers. I try to use my brain for more than just meal planning. And I certainly manage to carry on a conversation with other adults, though to what extent, I no longer know. All I’m trying to say is that I am a mid thirties mom, doing my best to feed, clothe and educate my children while still keeping a bit of the me that was before.

I don’t think that the hours spent driving my children from the library to the swimming pool and on to the dentist will count for much on my resume. I know for a fact they won’t want to hear about all the nights I was woken to screams of “mommy, mommy.”. Even less, the nights those screams weren’t answered quickly enough because I was just too tired, and then the kids climbed into bed and kept me up the rest of the night. Resume writing class did not tell me how to spin answering the same question over and over into a marketable characteristic.

So, even after writing this, I still don’t know if someday I will be prepared to enter the world as an educated and valuable member of the working class. I certainly don’t know if I will ever again be able to spend eight hours in a business suit and high heels. I don’t know if business jargon will be the same and if I will be qualified to sit at a desk, much less accomplish important tasks. I don’t know yet, but I suppose it’s not time for that. I will have to face that day later, though, but for now I don’t have to know anything.