My psychiatrist helped me to see this. Well, I kind of already knew I was at a crossroads. Chatting with my psychiatrist has helped me to see how I might conceivably choose a path rather than make like Tom Hanks in Cast Away and stand at the crossroads until the credits roll. I’m only 41 years old. Even if I only live as long as my mother did, I’ve got at least another 12 years until the credits roll. That’s a long time to be standing at the crossroads. Much longer than the seven months I’ve already been standing here. My psychiatrist, in her way, gave me permission to forgive myself for wasting the last seven months of my life. She also gave me permission to take a while to figure out what exactly I’m going to do next. Here’s the progress so far: I accept the permission to do both of those things. I’m going to actually do them…eventually.
Two things: I am a very impatient person, especially when it comes to making decisions. I don’t like the decision-making process. I like the end result of decision-making, which is having made a decision, even if it’s wrong. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve made ill-considered decisions simply for the sake of not having to make the decision anymore. You might recall that’s how I ended up with my fourth child. I love my fourth child dearly, and she was definitely a right decision, but I couldn’t call the decision to have her anything but ill-considered. “I’m going to do this even if it’s wrong” is not the hallmark of a well-considered decision. That’s all I’m saying. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t. The intermittently-rewarded action is more likely to be repeated than the consistently-rewarded action. Did you know that? I learned that in my high school psychology class. Where was I going with this? Oh, yes. I had a fourth child even though it might have been wrong, but it worked out, so that’s validated my habit of making ill-considered decisions.
Unfortunately, sometimes I can’t even make an ill-considered decision because I can’t discern what my options are. This is the problem of my future right now.
Here are some things I’ve already decided: I’m not going to be a dental hygienist. I’m not going back to school. I’ve already wasted tons of my parents’ money on a useless bachelor degree and a not-small chunk of my own change on two ill-considered attempts at graduate school (attempts at graduate school being even more useless than a bachelor’s degree in English), and I’m just not going to waste any more money on school. There are way too many people in school as it is. Higher education is overpopulated; I don’t want to add to that. I know what you’re thinking: “I didn’t even know she was thinking about being a dental hygienist.” I wasn’t, really. It was just one of the things that occurred to me while I was thinking about useful careers I could enter. It happened while my dental hygienist was cleaning my teeth. I thought, “I’ve been a parent for fifteen years, so I’ve seen a lot of gross stuff. I could totally get past the ick factor and probably enjoy cleaning people’s teeth. That seems like a satisfying job.” Why? I don’t know. Maybe because I would be allowed to finish cleaning a person’s teeth and not have to do it again for another six months. Not that same person’s teeth, I mean. I wouldn’t have to go home with them and brush and floss their teeth twice a day while living inside their mouth. That’s the difference between cleaning a stranger’s teeth and cleaning your own house. Maybe I was working through some other issues at the time. That’s neither here nor there because my husband says I’m not perky enough to be a dental hygienist, and I totally agree. I’m not really perky enough to be anything but a DMV employee, and I don’t want to work at the DMV. That seems like a very unsatisfying job, in addition to a demoralizing one. But I digress. The point is that I’m not going to embark on a new career. I’m not qualified for any of them, and I’m not going back to school to get qualified.
I’m also not going to go back into journalism. Once upon a time, when I was young, if I hadn’t started having kids when I did, I probably could have enjoyed a fair-to-middling career in that industry for a number of years. But having been out of it for quite some time, absence has not made the heart grow fonder. I have absolutely no desire to do that sort of writing anymore. I mean, no one really cares anyway. I’m old and I’ve been unemployed for 15 years. No one would want me to write for them. Writers are a dime a dozen, anyway. Actually, by now they are probably absolutely free. I’d have to be some kind of go-getter. I’ve never been much for go-getting. I’d have to really, really want it, and I really, really don’t. This might be related to the perkiness issue. Or it could be a coincidence. The point is, I’m not going down that road again.
Which leaves me with the following options: 1) finish the novel I started six years ago, 2) start a new novel, or 3) become really, really good at cleaning my house. I know which option my husband would prefer. Which option has the greatest likelihood of success, however? I just don’t know. Two problems: 1) I fear failure—like, I’m deathly afraid of it, it’s a debilitating fear, and 2) I really, really hate housecleaning. I just feel like it’s time for me to succeed at something. It has been a very, very, very long time since I’ve succeeded at something, and I’m feeling very success-deprived. This is where you say, “Well, duh, Mad, no guts, no glory, nothing ventured, nothing gained, blah blah, you can’t succeed until you try,” but you don’t get it. I’m looking for something I can definitely succeed at. Then I can feel free to try something else that I’m going to fail at. I know, I’m making excuses for myself. Don’t you think I know that? Do you think I can keep a blog for nine years and be so lacking in self-awareness? I’m not telling you how I ought to be. I’m telling you how I am. You should know that about me by now.
I can’t tell you how many times I have advised other writers to give themselves permission to write crap, to give themselves permission to suck. I give myself permission to suck at a lot of things. Housekeeping and parenting being chief among them. Also, public speaking. Social interaction. Teaching children’s Sunday School. Coloring my own hair. The list goes on and on. Permission to suck at the thing I’ve always wanted to do more than anything else since I was a little girl, I cannot seem to give myself, no matter how hard I try. I know I have to. Don’t you think I know that? I’m like my seven-year-old, who currently has a bladder infection and has to drink two teaspoons of antibiotic twice a day and it tastes like hell. She knows she has to drink it. She knows it’s better if she just chugs it down and gets it over with so she can have a Scooby Snack. She knows if she doesn’t drink it, it’s going to start burning again when she pees. So she’s motivated, but…gah, it just tastes so horrible! She brings it to her lips and remembers how bad it tastes and she just shudders and puts it down again. Rinse and repeat, for about 10-20 minutes. That’s me, only instead of 10-20 minutes, think 10-20 years. I’m not sure where I’m at in the journey just now.
So that’s why I find myself considering things like being a dental hygienist, even though there was never any danger of me actually becoming a dental hygienist. If I can’t succeed at this totally useless thing I’ve always thought I was good at and meant to do, I need to have a back-up plan. That is why I’ve managed to maintain this blog for nine years, even though at this point it is really only just barely, technically maintained. That’s why I still blog at BCC even though I don’t really have anything to say about Mormonism anymore. It’s not the kind of writing I want to be doing, but it’s something, and if it’s not great, who cares, because it’s just blogging anyway, and moreover, if I give it up, I will be writing nothing. That’s what I’m afraid of.
Did I mention something at the beginning that seemed somewhat optimistic, like I was going to choose a path instead of remaining at the crossroads indefinitely? I was just kidding. No, I was actually just more optimistic when I started than now, when I’m ending. For now I am ending. Tomorrow maybe I will post something cute that one of my kids said. Or I will tell you about how I’ve become an expert on Regency romance novels. Or I will just skip blogging for another eight weeks. I think I said that six weeks of not posting was the magic number for a blog dying, which means that this blog is officially dead, no matter what I do. It can never be resurrected again. This is just Zombie Giraffe talking. Eventually someone will do the thing to me that you have to do to kill a zombie. I don’t know what that is.
15 comments
Comments feed for this article
April 11, 2013 at 8:42 am
Mother of the Wild Boys
I’ll take Zombie Giraffe over No Giraffe. I like to tell myself that you keep blogging (at least partly) for me, so I’m always flattered when I see a new post. 🙂
I totally have a love/hate feeling about the end of Castaway, where Tom Hanks stands at the Crossroads. I mean, its cool that I get to imagine whatever ending I want…but I’m more of an closure person. And I think that’s where you and I think alike…even if the closure is crappy, at least we don’t have to obsess about the endless “what ifs”. Am I right? {seriously, I want to know..so I can have closure 😉 }
April 11, 2013 at 9:04 am
Emma
I totally loved this post. I feel like this will be me in 5-10 years, probably including have a fourth child just to have a decision on the matter.
April 11, 2013 at 10:13 am
JRW
I loved this post too. I was thinking about leaving a “how ’bout another post?” comment on the last one, but I felt so needy and unpleasant. Also, I have decided to be done at three (my baby is 11 months old) and everyone at church tells me I’ll change my mind. Really? Well, you are not helping, because ever time someone tells me that my resolve deepens.
Also, have you ever read this lady? I’m quite in love with her and she blogs about career advice issues. Also, her homeschooling blog is incredible. I don’t agree with everything, but the caliber of comment-discussion she generates is formidable. You should read it even if you would never homeschool.
Here are a few I sent to my sister who is job hunting:
http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2007/01/16/the-connection-between-a-good-job-and-happiness-is-overrated/
http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2009/03/06/5-things-to-do-when-youre-unemployed-hint-its-not-job-hunting/
http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2003/03/16/if-youve-been-unemployed-for-a-while-consider-a-career-change/
http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/category/job-hunt/
And here are a few on education, ok I got overwhelmed and can’t find all my favorites, here’s a couple anyway. I wish I could hear your thoughts on them.
http://homeschooling.penelopetrunk.com/2012/08/22/how-to-teach-your-kids-to-find-a-passion/
http://homeschooling.penelopetrunk.com/2013/01/24/the-real-reason-parents-dont-homeschool/?utm_source=sidebar
http://homeschooling.penelopetrunk.com/2013/04/09/3-stereotypes-about-homeschooling-parents-and-why-theyre-wrong/
And, lastly – if you ever stop blogging at BCC I will be so sad. Needy or not, there it is.
April 11, 2013 at 10:42 am
Janelle
I give you permission to publish under a pseudonym if that makes you feel any more likely to finish a novel or three.
I’m also at a crossroads and I might go back to school, waste some money, and see what happens after that. I know for sure I don’t want an MBA. We’ll see what happens… But I’ll start by enrolling Suzanne in preschool.
April 11, 2013 at 11:43 am
MDearest
FWIW you have my permission to suck at blogging. Or anything. If you don’t post here for 8 months, I’ll still come and read it.
April 11, 2013 at 1:32 pm
janeannechovy
I absolutely adored this post. Even if your novel sucks, I will still buy it and tell all my friends to do so, too. There’s another alternative to figuring out what to do with your life, though, that I’ve found: allow yourself to be sucked into volunteer work at your children’s school. Through inevitable position-creep, I found myself last semester at my kids’ school, often dealing with recalcitrant middle schoolers, for three mornings each week. This was not something I ever dreamed about doing as a child. Thankfully, my schedule is different this semester, and my exposure to middle schoolers has been blessedly reduced, but I’m certainly not any closer to finding my dream, or even to finding out what it is. I feel you.
April 11, 2013 at 6:26 pm
Cheryl
Ditto to pretty much what everybody else said. I was just excited to be able to read some more of your witty banter! –wait, not banter, since it’s just you, not some kind of panel or anything, so… just your witty words. Your witty words! I love them. They make me happy. Even when they are filled with self-loathing (not that I want you sad in any way). You’re just dynamic and lovely and I can’t help it. I love your words. I miss them when they are not around.
So, write that novel. Make it all new-agey and crap. Make it the next trendy thing people do. Write it like a blog! Maybe not. Don’t take advice from me, anyway. My first two novels were so crappy I think I deleted them within weeks.
April 11, 2013 at 6:39 pm
JRW
Also, I know I said this on BCC once, but maybe you could do a project of making an e-book or magazine type book out of your BCC posts? I know you’d be basically just organizing them for me, since they’re free for the taking, but I’d still pay for them. Then I could give them away as gifts too which I would really like. And maybe you could do a little foreword or add some commentary to some of them? Idk how big of a project that is, but seems like if you could make a few dollars and spread your love that way, might as well start somewhere, right?
April 12, 2013 at 12:19 pm
Flip flop mama
You are a great writer and have a way of just writing things as they are so we can all relate. Crossroads are hard and I don’t envy you at all. I’m heading towards a crossroads too and it scares the hell out of me. May I suggest reading “The power of starting something stupid”? Maybe that will help motivate you. It’s a very powerful book.
April 14, 2013 at 8:49 am
ajnat
I vote for the novel. New or 3 years old doesn’t matter. Don’t clean any teeth but your own. Write.
I was so happy to see another post. Thanks.
April 15, 2013 at 2:05 am
Patience
Your “sucking” at blogging is the equivalent of a lot of other people doing awesome at blogging. It’s hard to be at a crossroads like this one. You’re a really talented writer.
April 15, 2013 at 4:43 am
a fan
I don’t know you, other than by reading your posts here and at BCC, but I love you, and if you weren’t so cool and funny, I might occasionally think we were the same person. I can’t wait to read your book!
April 15, 2013 at 4:53 pm
JRW
I am just in love with this woman! She reminds me of you in many ways. To continue my non-stalker but sincere gushing love of all things Rebecca (who I have never met) has written. http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2013/04/15/how-to-get-more-done-when-you-feel-stuck/#comments
April 16, 2013 at 2:39 pm
JRW
Ok, so this is my last, I promise. I just like thinking about other people’s problems instead of my own! 🙂 So, I read this
and thought, Rebecca J has put a ton of effort into thinking and writing about mormonism. How could you turn that into a career? Maybe you could do some sort of coaching in that realm. Like, a life coach that focuses on exploring religious issues? Or of course a writing coach. I bet there are plenty of people would pay to have personal correspondence with you. Ok, now back to my wild brood! (I’m so far from a crossroads in my life it’s not even funny! 🙂
April 17, 2013 at 9:34 am
Emily U
I found my way here from BCC. I’d happily read anything you wrote, but realize that may be the last thing in the world I should say to encourage someone to write. According to a study I heard about on NPR, children do better when they’re told how hard they worked, not how smart and talented they are…that just makes them freeze up for fear of disappointing someone.
Anyway, I always feel funny about commenting on personal blogs when I don’t know the person in real life, but you are my favorite writer at BCC, and just wanted to say I’m glad you blog. Even if it’s not what you really want to be doing. I hope you write your novel.
Best wishes to you.