There have been many changes in my life over the last year. I got married, I got pregnant (actually, in a slightly different order, but we didn't realize it at the time...), my new husband and I moved back to the area where we grew up so that we can share the joy (and trials, and childcare) of raising our son with our friends and family around us, and I became an independently licensed clinical social worker after three years of graduate school, two years of hard work, administrative fees, jumping through hoops and taking exams. The world of the professional testing center is a strange one, by the way. If you've never been initiated, it involves multiple scans of one's handprint and thumbprint, the kind of heavy duty sound cancelling ear muffs my husband wears to the shooting range, and full audio and video surveillance of the test taker in question.
I've always been someone who organizes my thoughts best in conversations, and I often don't know quite how I feel about something or how I want to proceed until I've "tried on" a few scenarios either by talking them out with a friend over coffee or by living my way into the decision to see if it fits me. I've been wondering, as all of these changes swirl around me, if a blog might be a useful and or enjoyable place to do some of that test-driving of ideas, or just to talk to myself in a socially acceptable way to clear my head, share an excitement or experiment with just exactly what kind of girl I want to be as I near 30.
There's a song that's been going through my head as I type all of this, and I think I'll end with the lyrics. It comes from the soundtrack of the Secret Garden musical, which my mother took me to see on Broadway for my 11th birthday. It seems to me it pretty much sums up why I started writing here today in the first place:
"I need a place where I can go,
Where I can whisper what I know,
Where I can whisper who I like
And where I go to see them.
I need a place where I can hide,
Where no one sees my life inside,
Where I can make my plans, and write them down
So I can read them.
A place where I can bid my heart be still
And it will mind me.
A place where I can go when I am lost,
And there I'll find me.
I need a place to spend the day,
Where no one says to go or stay,
Where I can take my pen and draw
The girl I mean to be."
So there you have it. I'm not sure where this blog will go, or how often I'll post, but now it's mine, to do with as I like while I sort out "the girl I mean to be".
I love these thoughts, K. So often I feel guilt over "wasting" my expensive college education by not pursuing some kind of high paying, high prestige job, but then I remember that's not the case at all. I gained so much from that degree and those four years that I use in my daily life and relationships. You're doing an excellent job of putting all your skills, talents, and education to use not only in your career but also in your role as a wife and mother and daughter and friend and... Love you!
ReplyDeleteThanks, lovely. You've very much been a part of my efforts to figure this whole woman, wife, mother business out.
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