Balancing angst

Today is much better, even though the actual stuff is a bit harder. But I’m centred. Noah wouldn’t nap and finally I put him in the Ergo and went for a walk by the lake – he passed out, and I got to feel the breeze and see the sun sparkle on the water. I am once again so grateful to be living here.  I am having paroxyms of gratitude today and it occured to me to mention the weird real estate blip that we bought in – on my street lately houses on the lake side have sold for $500k, and houses on my side of the street that had better lots but smaller rooms, or equivalent give and takes, have sold for $380k. But we bought for considerably less. If it was the teal and the bad carpet downstairs and the junk well, thank you for that.

Although I still can’t explain yesterday’s dip, which is fine – not every bad mood needs a reason – I am suffering from massive existential angst around the decision to leave my job.  I want to lay out here once again that I think good daycare is not a terrible thing and that I am in no way taking any moral high ground. I just am laying out what I’m thinking for our family.

And that is – has been for a bit, but I wanted to talk to people at work – that given that we have the luxury of some choice, I think it is going to be my choice to not go back to work full-time for another year, or six months, or however long we can manage financially.  The big picture reasons are:

1) We can afford it – barely, in that our basic expenses (even the car) are coverable and we have some savings for the other things that inevitably come up.
2) Carl’s work continues to be really high-maintenance during the week, and might be on weekends again. It’s not economically feasible for him to just quit, and he can’t go part-time.
3) It doesn’t feel right to either of us to make the trade for the job I would be going back to – a job I have enjoyed but which has changed a lot in a way I would not necessarily like. Again looking at us as a team, me being home can mean higher quality meals, keeping in better touch with family and staying connected to our community and all these things that take time and energy but are not paid.
4) Noah is thriving where he is. He well might do this in daycare too, but right now is good.
5) Daycare is harder to find under 18 months, so even six months longer makes a big difference in terms of what spaces are available, etc.
6) I do actually do work where I can continue to grow my career and even make money without having “a job” unlike, say, nursing or being a lawyer or something.

I agree with all this. There are some challenges in it even objectively – we’ve done well saving this year, but it is going to be really pretty tight financially. But it feels like the right decision.

I am going to try to sell my work on providing them with a pile of good easy-for-them content for money, produced from my home.  I don’t know if they’ll go for it, but that would be ideal for me. If they don’t go for it, we’ll part ways and I’ll go after the freelance market way more agressively, and if that doesn’t work and things are getting tight financially, I’ll get some other job and things will be fine.

Except, in the fear-driven part of me, I feel vast rolling waves of anxiety.  The high pitch of it is because I don’t trust the universe: it seems to me that the minute I let go of a paycheque, either Carl will get laid off or die; I’ll never get hired again for anything except flipping burgers; I’ll screw Noah up in some way or something; and the roof, despite being new, will cave in on the house or equivalent.

And layered over that, in a less anxiety-driven way but still based out of something not-quite-pleasant, I feel like I’ll just be another housewife with an unfinished novel lying around which is – so disrespectful, to myself and other women, that it makes me want to rip my own head off.  But those thoughts appear in little Linda Hirshman-like thought bubbles.

First of all, I would pay a daycare centre or a nanny to take care of Noah because it’s a hell of a lot of work. So staying home with Noah is exactly that – work – it’s just that I’m not-paying myself out of money I’m not-making. Secondly, what the fuck? Why does everyone have to be productive every second? Thirdly, it’s not so black and white as “if you stop working for a few years you have given up on the idea of working.”  Yes, you lose economic power for that time and you can lose career momentum, but I am fortunate enough that I might end up with more to say, or having broadened my skills by writing for a wider variety of markets, or whatever.

Fourthly, there has been only one week since January where I haven’t written either a query or an article or done significant-if-slow work on the book, or finished a story and submitted it to a ficition market.  It hasn’t been at the pace that I want to work towards, but even with all the adjusting to child-rearing and stuff, plus being on maternity leave, it would be untrue to say I haven’t worked at all.

But I still worry I might end up on the floor depressed playing with Little People and being a harridan to Carl. I don’t know. It is the unknown that I find hard, combined with a lack of faith and a lot of social conditioning coming in.

I admit that I am a little floored at how hard the social conditioning hits, with all this mothering stuff.  There is no choice that would come without guilt and fear. This way it’s career/financial guilt. I think that for me and us, this is easier to carry than fear and guilt at putting Noah in full-time daycare right now.

I think this is right for me and our family: to make the run at part-time work – first negotiating at work and if that doesn’t fly, settle down to serious freelancing efforts, from September to March, and then see how it is going and go from there.

But man, it’s hard.

Other people in the system are delighted. Lyria would really freak if we went back to full-time work. Middle-class poverty doesn’t scare her and she’s really doing well (and I think if I would get out of the way more, would do even better).  JJ thinks it’s the best balance and is sort of hoping that we even make enough money to do that masters. Lynn is starting to get very aggressive about writing time which is – all to the good. She seems to think we’ll sell the book as soon as we finish it.

So, the committee is actually without so much angst. But me, ahhhhhh I am spinning my wheels a bit.