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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. 

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