Skip to main content

Money

I recently quit my job. It's time to stay home and wait for the twins to arrive. I'm sad about it. I liked working. I was teaching math to kids at a learning center, and it felt good. It felt impactful. Quitting was the right thing to do, though. These are the sacrifices we make for our families.

Being unemployed got me thinking about what else was out there. What might my next job be? Eventually the twins will be old enough for me to go back to work. Should I keep teaching? Should I try something new? Should I go back to school?

So I started looking around online at various opportunities that peaked my interest. Maybe I'd like to work in a group home or a school for children with autism spectrum disorders. Maybe I'd like to get a certificate in bereavement counseling and work with women who've had miscarriages.

I stayed up way too late reading about all these things. The whole time I felt a gnawing dissatisfaction in my gut. All the jobs that interest me are pretty low-paying jobs. If I have to hire babysitters or put the kids in daycare while I worked, I'd make practically nothing.

So it's time to treat writing like a job. If I'm going to make practically nothing, I might as well be doing something I already know I love, rather than just something that might possibly interest me.

The way to treat writing like a job is to commit time to it. This shouldn't be too hard before the twins get here. After that, we'll just have to see. This week, I'm going to commit an hour a day to writing. Hopefully momentum will kick in, and one hour every day will turn into multiple hours a day. I'll let you know how it goes.

P.S. My name is in the table of contents in a literary magazine that you can buy here! It's $15 for a print copy and $3 for a digital copy. The poem of mine included therein is Like a Python. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

"Why Can't You Be Discreet?"

  How non-affirming theologies re-traumatized me - a sexual assault survivor - when I came out as queer and polyamorous to my family: I was raised in a protestant church. I was sexually abused multiple times by multiple Christian men when I was 13 to 15 years old. I did not understand that I was being abused, and I absolutely blamed myself for what was happening to me.  When I talked to my mom about just a portion of it, while it was ongoing, I asked her what we were going to do about it. She said, "We're going to pretend it never happened." For half my life, I lived by that. I did my best to pretend it never happened. I did this, partly, for the comfort of my family members. I did not want my parents to know about everything that had happened to me, because I did not want them to blame themselves for not protecting me. I did not want to tell any of my family members, because I did not want them to be hurt or upset or have strained relationships with people in the church....

Like a Python

Five 2 One Magazine has published my poem Like a Python !  Check it Out! I submitted the poem to them in January and received an enthusiastic response about 5 1/2 months later. Not bad timing. I'm honored to be a contributor to a magazine that publishes such interesting, unusual works. Thanks Five 2 One!

Are They All Yours?

Him: How many kids do you have? Me: 5 Him: Like all 5 are your kids? Me: What do you actually want to know? Him: What? Me: I have 5 kids. They are my kids. Do you want to know how many pregnancies I had? How many births? If some of my kids are adopted? If I breastfed? What do you actually want to know? Him: *silence* OK, so I barked at the dude. But he is neither the first nor last person to ask me some variation of the question, "Which of these kids are REALLY yours?" Yo. I just told you. They are all mine. I cook their meals and wash their pee-soaked clothes. I bandage their scrapes and clip their finger-nails. I zip up their coats and braid their hair. I read with them and play with them and sing with them. I hold them and comfort them. Every. Single. Day. They call me Mama. All five of them call me Mama. And why shouldn't they? Aren't I doing everything to fulfill that roll? Look, I'm happy to answer your earnest questions. One woman said, "...