It's Almost Spring! New Things On The Horizon

Mr. B is happy to be outside again. Winter has overstayed its welcome this year.

(If you click on the picture below you will see my lettuce and cilantro sprouts!)

Come to find out, I really love babies. Toddlers... not so much! The insanity of this past week has been enough to change my entire interest in "staying home" with my kids. Not that raising my children has been my long-term goal for full time work but age 2 (and I hear 3 is worse) is really pushing me to look for work elsewhere.

Paid work would be ideal. I say that tongue-in-cheek but strangely when I explore the job market I find that volunteering in the short term is my best strategy for long term career success. When you have little-to-no experience in everything you're interested in you have to be very intentional about what you do next. I'll be 34 this month and if I keep doing misc jobs I'll always get paid at an entry level.

So, I've been thinking, praying and meditating on what is next and, yes, I've come up with a plan. I have applied to volunteer at Clackamas Women's Services which gives women and children shelter, financial, emotional and transitional housing support in their effort to live free from domestic and sexual violence. This is actually the LAST place I can picture myself working, quite frankly. I have long been overly affected by violent stories and images; it is almost an unnatural fear. When a TV show I'm watching announces "Parental discretion is advised due to violent content," I am grasping the remote before they can finish that sentence.

So, how did I arrive at this decision, you ask? Thanks for asking! You've heard the saying "those that can't do, teach." Well, for me the saying goes, "those that can't teach, do." I have been resenting my Women's Studies degrees that have left me ironically careerless... unless I wanted to teach... which turns out I don't. The only other obvious option is working directly with women's "issues." I have tried to avoid this fate. I've worked very hard imagining myself satisfied doing something - anything - that didn't take another degree to pursue. Working from my scant resume I have tried to imagine myself satisfied doing another potential career - event-planning, fundraising... back-waxing? No dice!

At some point in my soul searching I was forced to consider the obvious, to acknowledge the elephant in my room - Why don't I work at a women's shelter? So I looked into it. The more I researched local women's services the more I have warmed up to this idea. Embarrassingly, I've found that I'm not even qualified for some of the volunteer positions. Some volunteer positions require previous experience working with survivors of violence. But after gaining some experience working for organizations such as THIS I would be able to secure paid work that utilizes what's already on my bony resume (except for hair-removal, of course). In fact, it would give me the opportunity to do much more than event-plan and fund-raise; I could write, educate, supervise, not to mention positively impact women and children in their hour of need.

So, this is my new pursuit. Although if my volunteer application is accepted I will need to wait until June to do a month worth of training before I can volunteer, which is a commitment of 6 months of service (about 12 hours a month). So paid work is likely a year away. The timing is perfect actually. Brendan is off to preschool this Sept and a year from now Eva will definitely be weaned and much more independent.

Now I just need to breathe deep and internally fortify. I guess these past couple of years of drug-free childbirth and baby-raising hasn't left me totally empty handed. If there's one thing I've learned it is this: when pain is inevitable, you've gotta run full speed at it.