I’ve taken a rather long pause from blogging over the past few weeks as we have been out of the country and I haven’t had a moment to spare…let alone, to blog. I have really missed writing, though. I have missed it so much that I have begun small attempts at tracking my thoughts and reactions to all the different surroundings I’ve found myself in…but, alas, I haven’t been able to finish those thoughts in order to actually publish a post! This past weekend I even went as far as to record myself talking, since I couldn’t find a moment to sit down without a little guy tugging at my pants. Even through recording myself, I ended up having to cut my thoughts short several times and finally gave up! : )
Anyway…here is my post. Let’s hope I finish it and can actually publish it — today!
Our family just returned from a two week visit to my husband’s hometown, Moedling, just south of Vienna, Austria. We had a lovely time, albeit EXHAUSTING and mentally DRAINING! No seriously. It was a beautiful visit, and I am so grateful that we did it. At some point, when I’m more focused and well-rested, I will post some favorite pictures from the trip and give a little insider scoop or memoire about what we did. For now, however, I would like to attempt to regurgitate my observations and thoughts before, during and after this excursion and find a way to make sense of it all in my little, tired head.
We all experience some sort of renewal after a vacation, don’t we? Whether it’s taking a step away from the mundane and rethinking ideas or giving our brains a little bit of a rest from the decisions we are constantly faced with, it is refreshing to take a break and experience a different change of pace. This always happens for me when I go out of town or get away for a few days. I come back and have so many new and refreshing thoughts and perspective about how things are and how things should be in my life. This trip was no different and it actually shed some light as well as brought up new questions about how things are currently functioning (or not functioning) in my daily life.
Before I left, I was talking to a woman over the phone about redesigning my logo for my business. This brought about all kinds of questions and realizations that I wasn’t quite expecting. In the end, we decided to take a break and it left off with me taking this trip and regrouping when we got back to discuss things further. However, now that I’m back, I have even more questions about what I want my business to look like and what I want to do with it, or if I even want to do anything with it at all. My head is literally spinning. The challenge here is, my head is spinning but with even less insight and focus than it was before I left, and I don’t really have the time or energy to think about it and figure it out anymore.
Not only am I realizing that I can’t really focus on my business right now, but I’m realizing how good it felt to just be with my family and not have to think about it at all. I also realized how easy it is for us to overextend ourselves, and how it may be possible that I have done that by accepting this children’s choir director job on top of everything else. Part of me feels really irresponsible for feeling so ambivalent about it all. The other part of me feels like this is the answer I’ve been looking for. It’s simple. But, sometimes we overlook the simple.
For some time now, all I have been feeling, with regard to duties and responsibilities outside of motherhood, is dread and disdain. I love being a teacher. I really do. I love that I am fortunate enough for music to be such a huge part of my life and that I am able to share it with others. I love that I can teach out of my home and stay close to my kids. Most people might think, “She’s got it made!” For this reason, along with income and needing to feel like I’m still earning money, I have chosen to continue working, even if only part time, while raising young children. With one child, this always seemed doable. It was hard at times, but it was manageable. With two, it is nearly impossible. It has taken me all of my youngest son’s 11 months of life to realize that I am in over my head. Now, I am raising a huge white flag and surrendering.
If anything, this trip has caused me to take a step back and reconsider how I’ve set up my life. Do I really need to be teaching right now? How is it serving me? How is it serving my family? How is it serving those I teach? What is my Hauptziel or main incentive for teaching? Money? Recognition? A break from my kids? All of those are valuable reasons, but is the reason outweighing the difficulty of trying to do it? In other words, is all of this worth the enormous effort it is somehow inflicting? If I weren’t teaching, how would we manage financially? How would it change my overall thought process about how I go about my day? My week? My month? Would I really miss teaching and have to figure out a way to do it? Would I never look back again? Have I outgrown it altogether and need to search for a different profession? Or maybe…should I at least consider changing the way I’ve been doing it? Is there a way I can reinvent how I teach, when I teach and who I teach that would make it work better for me and for my family? Do I want to stop teaching altogether and pursue something totally different? How much more time and effort would pursuing something else mean for me and my family? Would it be worth the extra effort? Would be something I should put on the backburner until I have more time and energy to focus on it? Will putting it on the backburner make it never happen? Will someone else take my idea and beat me to the punch before my kids are old enough for me to try it out myself? How much would our family be set back if I didn’t teach at all or try out a new business? Would being a 100% stay at home Mom make me crazy or would I really enjoy not having anything else to think about except my husband and children?
Truth is, the more questions I ask, the more I am faced with. I am not getting any clarity at this point about what I should be doing, so it looks like I just need to sit back and wait for an answer to come to me while I readjust to the different time zone. However, I’m not feeling at ease with continuing what I’m currently doing for much longer. As I drove to my job at the church this morning, I kept thinking, “You know, Amy…you can always just turn around and go home.” But, I never did. When I commit to something, I commit. Whether my heart is in it or not, or whether I want to be there or not, I will be there. But, the thing is, I want to be able to just say, “Well, I tried this and it didn’t work.” I want to be able to just take a step back and breathe without feeling like I’m letting down a lot of people in the process. Is that ever possible?
Well, I will wrap this up tonight as I am just beat and need to rest. I will try to get back on here tomorrow and continue writing and ranting until this all resolves in my head. Maybe sleep will help it all come together. Or not.
Here is a link to our web album from our recent trip!
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