A change is gonna come

Really, really soon. This is my last week of work. On Tuesday, September 2, I will get up out of bed, help make coffee and breakfasts, take a shower, walk the kids to school for their first day, wave good-bye to McPie from the porch as he drives off to work... Then I'll come back into the house... and probably do a little dance.

The rumours are true: I don't have any specific plans about what to do next. I don't have a job lined up. I don't even have any particular plans to look for a job. In the outside world, anyway.

It's been a bit of a tumultuous summer, coming to terms with this decision to leave my current (tedious but lucrative) career and (wonderful) employer, cold turkey. Well sort of cold turkey - working part-time this summer has given me a taste of a non-corporate life (see description of mornings above - I've practised that a bit this summer).

I've been struggling to dispel (from my own brain) the conventional notion that I'm supposed to be working at a professional job for a company that pays me a useful-sized paycheque. My instincts have traditionally told me that I contribute to a family by supporting them (and myself) financially. Over the past couple of years, it's grown increasingly apparent that having plenty of financial resources isn't the thing that makes our family happy. (I do realize there may be things I take for granted and may find out otherwise soon enough, but I'm happy to get educated.) We live simply, and the kids make it pretty clear that what they want is more of us, not more stuff or a bigger, better house. Although this has been becoming clearer to us, it's still incredibly difficult to shake the notion that we need to be working, because we can. Because we should.

Obviously, there is a practical component to this: we need to feed and clothe family, keep a roof over our heads, and provide forms of basic leisure and entertainment. And to this end, somebody has to work. But we're pretty sure that, with some careful planning, it only needs to be one of us. McPie and I have actually gone back and forth on which one of us will be the one to do so, and I stayed in my current role while he worked through a couple of career changes to find his current satisfactory position. Now I get a turn. I am so incredibly grateful to be gifted with this opportunity to grow and change in one particular area of my life.

I do have lots of plans. A big part of it, to start, will be working on our home (not necessarily the house itself, but the entire environment and set of routines), to try to optimize all the good stuff we already have going within our family. I expect (hope?!) that I'll find the motivation and time to explore some of my own interests -- which ideally will lead to revelations about where my career path lies. Maybe I'll end up back here, doing this same work; but if I do, it will be with a searched-soul and renewed outlook.

The future is pretty much wide open. I'll definitely keep you posted.