Coming back to an old friend...
When I started this blog I was a different person. I was younger (definitely, much younger) with little ones and craft projects galore in my life. Sharing these posts helped to give me the feeling that I was important and probably made me feel like I was a good mom because I was doing all these things. (Who are we kidding, yes! I thought I was so much better because I could work a full-time job, direct musicals, do all these extra crafts, etc. I was KILLING it as being a mom! But was I really? No, not really. I was just over-tired, over-whelmed, and hated myself for constantly running from thing to thing and had no ability or time to relax and enjoy my children.)
As the children grew, the cute kid projects became non-existent and my life was all about shuttling children from one place to another, obsessing over homework and schedules, trying to make my career feel worthy of where I "should be" in my life, and so many other unimportant things. Looking back now, I have realized that I was just working in toxic jobs, dealing with having the not perfect family/marriage, being overwhelmed by daily life, and just being your average mom/random white lady. I have been trying to find ways to be in the background to not bring focus to how fat I have let myself become and how I have not achieved amazingly great professional goals.
Now that my kids are mostly grown, but I love that they still need me daily - just nowhere near as all-consuming, I have found myself in a place where I am trying to figure out who I am, what I want to be, and how I will get to that person.
Here are the things I have decided are absolutes in my life:
- I will not be a crazy Karen. Seriously, as a white-haired, white woman, this is in my mind every moment.
- It is time for me to discover who I am - for years I was Andrew's wife, then M&M's mom, and now I am just - Amy. So who is that?
- Things I like to do involve crafting, theater, music, and listening to podcasts. How do I take these things and find ways to share what I know and love to do with other people who like the same things?
So that is it - this is my (probably post-) mid-life crisis. I have found a job that makes me really happy, but where I do not have any power or real worries/responsibilities. That is working for me right now as I am in this place of great change. I want to be more at work and do more - but that is not part of this. I have decided that I do not want to be defined by my job. When I die, I don't want people to say. "she was great at marketing", I want people to say "she really lived every moment". That is what I think is missing in my life right now, living every moment!
Okay, so I said that - how do I do that?
I don't really know, but I do know that I am going to try really hard to figure that out.
Right now it feels really scattered, I have started to bring back all kinds of things that I used to really love.
- I am playing guitar daily again. Even though it makes me really sad because it is so tied to my father who we lost a year and a half ago to pancreatic cancer, it also reminds me that this is something I can do, I am "good" at, and it is just for me.**
- I have started crafting again. I SO LOVE crafting and making things! I am not crazy about how I get sucked into Pinterest timesucks for hours - but I do love looking at crafts, figuring out how to do them, and making new things! Now I just want to figure out how to make money at it and have just one side hustle.**
- I am starting a new theater company with a dear friend who I LOVE doing theater with. This is very important to me. I have missed directing theater! I hate that I think that I just love this because I love being in charge. I truly think I should be able to enjoy running a theater company and directing shows, without that "female guilt" of being in charge.**
**Side note: Having something "just for me" still makes me feel bad. I am not sure why this is. Why should everything I do benefit someone else?
So that is where my brain is and what I want to say. Feel free to follow along, I have no idea where this will go.
Coming back for a quick edit - yes, I am still obsessed with Disney!
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