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Have I mentioned…

… I love my Droid.
I can post anything from anywhere. Like now, I am in the bathtub trying to wind down both physically and emotionally from a shitty few hours.
I overheard a conversation about me that was upsetting. I was raised to be independent. I was also raised to be in a patriarchal marriage and family where you love and respect the man in the family, the head of the household. So to overhear 2 people that love me the most talk about me using terms like, “lived her whole life depending on others” and “this time it’s come around to bite her”, was umm… really crappy.
At the age of 18 I got my EMT license. Then I worked as a firefighter/EMT for a few seasons, going to school, volunteering and working retail in the off season. I decided that wasn’t the career path I wanted to follow so I decided to try for medical school. That is when I met my husband, moved 400 miles away and started our family.
We decided that after I had our 3rd child under 3 years old it didn’t make sense for me to go back to work to pay someone else to raise our kids. It was tough, on me, financially, emotionally, but it was worth it. In the last 5 years I hesitated going back to work even though all the kids were in school. I gave up my career and couldn’t go back to it without schooling and a lot of hard work, too much time. Financially we knew I was going to have to work so last spring I got my full time job with the school district as a substitute Instructional Aide. I loved it. I was good at it, never would have left if we didn’t lose our housing and I ended up in Idaho with no work available.
I don’t want to be here. I think I give off that vibe a little too much for Idahoans. I want a life our own, me and the kids, successful in what I choose.
I think working at a hotel is good experience for very little pay. I am working hard to get on with another company that will give me more hours but benefits as well.
I have been too dependent for too long. That is true. But I also used those years to focus on my family. Not just my kids. Now we are starting a new chapter in life and while I am a little lost I won’t be told I can’t do it.

2 thoughts on “Have I mentioned…

  1. Ugg.
    Sorry.
    When my brother was diagnosed with cancer a lot of people wanted to know what he did to get it – like if he smoked, or something.
    I think it may be something like that – like they recognize that you aren’t where you want to be right now, and they want to blame you for it, so they can believe that they are safe – that crappy things wouldn’t happen to them because of X, Y or Z.
    It’s about them and their fear, not you – but it sucks.

  2. This happens way too often in our society: a mom takes time to stay home doing the most important job of all, raising well-adjusted kids to become productive members of society, and then ends up in a position where she needs to support said kids down the road and finds herself ill-equipped. At least by society’s standards (having marketable skills, education, etc.). It really sucks. And makes me mad.
    I have the opposite issue. I was so paranoid about not being able to support my family by myself (because I was so sure that’s what would happen), that I focused on my education and career for so long that now that I’m at the point of having babies, my body isn’t so quick to bounce back and has challenges I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be having if I were 10 years younger. But mostly, I’ve set up my life so I have to work, and I can’t take several years off to raise the kidlets, even if I want to. I’m not complaining, I’m very blessed to have a great husband who wants to be Mr. Mom. But my point is that we moms can be hard on ourselves no matter what the situation. And others judge us too, from the outside, and have no idea of the circumstances.
    I, for one, have never seen you as dependent. You are a no-nonsense, get s**t done kind of woman. And I know that it will work out for you and for me. Not without challenges, but you and I will make our paths work for us, come hell or high water.

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