Here I am at age 62 and still have no idea what I want to be when I grow up. That is not entirely true. It might be said that I have not grown up yet. I can’t take the blame, though. It is my kids that are keeping me in this perpetually circling mode.
Have you noticed that our kids still treat us like “mom” instead of adult women? When they come home they head first to the cookie jar and are genuinely disappointed if it isn’t full. They leave wet towels on the floor or the bed unmade when they come to visit. And there is an unspoken expectation that you are still there 24/7 should the need arise.
Advice is seldom taken and seen as “old school” as if new ideas on parenting are inherently better as opposed to tried and true. The need to keep us in the background is what I call hanging on to the apron strings so they can kick you in the shins syndrome. How can one possibly think about what they want to do when they are so busy being stuck in the holding pattern of “mom”?
I told myself that when my kids were grown, that I would actively pursue my writing career. My oldest is 40 and my youngest is 26 and though I am writing, I don’t have time to just write. I admire women like JK Rowling, who by all reports worked her wizardly ways until the wee hours of the night to magically produce Harry Potter. It is not that it can’t be done. It’s the lack of wee hours left in a day.
So here I am at age 62, designing a creative laboratory. It will be a place where I can write, compose and record music, a drawing board for new ideas. Eventually I would like to offer creative retreats for women (or men) who like myself, have to actually physically remove themselves in order to grow up and do what they want to do. An inspiring place that says “do what you want to do when you grow up, now”.
Images: Flickr image by Becky Streipe