I'm 6 months pregnant with a feisty boy. I have been married a little over a year to the love of my eternity. I graduated college with a bachelor's degree in English.
And I have no dreams.
When I was single, my dreams were modest; become a professor at a southern Utah university, close to my family, and own a house before I was 30. I had a plan that involved renting-to-own a home and taking in roommates until the payments were complete, then dividing the payments between travel and renovation. My immediate family would consist of a few cats, dogs, and two pygmy goats. I've often talked about this dream before and it's no less valid now than it was when I first dreamed it. A small home, cozy, filled with bookshelves and good food... that's all I wanted.
Then I met my husband and we shared our ambitions with each other. He admired how I had my whole life planned out and the spark he felt in me as I wanted to own a bookstore, or at least work in one, as well as writing and editing on the side. I filled my life with jobs and material things in order to negate the necessity of human company. While he fell in love with the idea of marrying a corporate woman, I had already chosen a life without human companionship. I didn't even factor in a serious boyfriend; just a few romances here and there to occupy my time when writing became scarce or I needed someone to drag to family functions. Plans change. God works in mysterious ways. I got married to a man I barely knew and in 3 months, there will be a baby I don't know at all.
He's asked me about my dreams for the future, for my career, and what I want to have happen. Honestly, as soon as I got married, my dreams disappeared. Contrived as it sounds, my focus shifted from a life filled with material possessions to a life filled with my family. My dreams consist of supporting my husband, being there for my parents/siblings, helping raise my child. I want to take care of my own home, to be there when my husband comes home from work, and to 100% be committed to his dreams. I don't feel like I've lost my identity in being married; my dreams just changed.
And in this world where a woman must constantly be seeking career advancement in order to be seen as competent as a man, I stick out. Not just in my classes, where I was the only married person, but in my family where I have achieved so much more than my relatives academically. My parents saw me as the career woman because I pushed against the idea of marriage so much. I didn't want my dreams to fall under someone else's, and as an introvert, I had no desire for extended human company beyond spoiling my eventual nieces and nephews.
I feel like I'm disappointing the world by feeling this way. Everywhere I look, even amongst my friends with children, they juggle jobs and babies, dinners and brunches, meetings and laundry. I don't feel the need. Since I met my husband, the desire to create something from nothing has become a refined 'create order from chaos' instinct. I no longer want to write or teach college. I don't view this, and I don't feel, as if my dreams are being subsumed by those of my husband, but that my passion has changed. I've been so focused on THIS idea of myself that I gave little to no thought to the alternatives, such as marriage.
My husband feels I've lost my 'sparkle'. My parents expect my to get a doctorate. My siblings continue to look to me as the accomplished and intelligent one, the one treading down the snow in front of them to make an easier path.
If I stop, they'll stop. I feel as if I've reached the end of caring about life for myself and the beginning of loving others so much, their existence takes up my life. Martyr-like though it sounds, it's just a fact of life for me. I don't feel as if I've lost something by giving up my dreams in exchange for new ones. Much like store credit. I don't feel bad that I'm returning a pair of jeans that don't fit my bulging belly in exchange for comfortable leggings. One was suitable for a different stage of my life, and now this is my reality. There can be no resentment in the truth.
I feel secure in what I want, yet I lack the words to describe to others how I feel, that for the first time in over 20 years, I am a changed person, so completely that my past self would not recognize me now. I've stayed consistent throughout the years, much to the chagrin of my parents, and to change now...
To add to the lot stacked against me, my husband's family, not just immediate, is filled with success stories of people who have gone on professional, globally acclaimed, dance teams, doctors, those who bike across the world for charity and interior decorators for yachts. There are programmers and professors of math and science, engineers, artists, even athletes. Comparison plagues humanity, no less so when that comparison is drawn between yourself and your in-laws.
Bottom line? I don't want to be a writer. I don't want to edit or publish anything, I don't want to work in a bookstore or really do anything beyond being there for my family. I "just" want to be a wife and mother. Those are my dreams. I have never reached for something I viewed as unattainable because I'm a realist, and the reality remains that my dreams are different than 2 years ago, my ambitions have gone through a drastic overhaul, and if there is something wrong with me, then God needs to be more clear about His intentions for me. I don't believe I am 'settling' for a domestic life; for the first time, I am aiming for it. I want to stay at home and feed my babies, I want to can and grow things in the garden and fix things in my car/house, I want to make afghans and quilts and be domestic. My dream is to live the rest of my life happy and content, and however low-shooting and unambitious as that makes me appear, it's the truth. I'm not going to say, 'It's my truth!' like a lot of sappy people who are too ashamed to admit the absolute nature of their statement. My ambition to be a mother is not my truth, it is the truth.
And if anyone has any thoughts on that, you can take a number.
Serving 8 billion and counting.
And I have no dreams.
When I was single, my dreams were modest; become a professor at a southern Utah university, close to my family, and own a house before I was 30. I had a plan that involved renting-to-own a home and taking in roommates until the payments were complete, then dividing the payments between travel and renovation. My immediate family would consist of a few cats, dogs, and two pygmy goats. I've often talked about this dream before and it's no less valid now than it was when I first dreamed it. A small home, cozy, filled with bookshelves and good food... that's all I wanted.
Then I met my husband and we shared our ambitions with each other. He admired how I had my whole life planned out and the spark he felt in me as I wanted to own a bookstore, or at least work in one, as well as writing and editing on the side. I filled my life with jobs and material things in order to negate the necessity of human company. While he fell in love with the idea of marrying a corporate woman, I had already chosen a life without human companionship. I didn't even factor in a serious boyfriend; just a few romances here and there to occupy my time when writing became scarce or I needed someone to drag to family functions. Plans change. God works in mysterious ways. I got married to a man I barely knew and in 3 months, there will be a baby I don't know at all.
He's asked me about my dreams for the future, for my career, and what I want to have happen. Honestly, as soon as I got married, my dreams disappeared. Contrived as it sounds, my focus shifted from a life filled with material possessions to a life filled with my family. My dreams consist of supporting my husband, being there for my parents/siblings, helping raise my child. I want to take care of my own home, to be there when my husband comes home from work, and to 100% be committed to his dreams. I don't feel like I've lost my identity in being married; my dreams just changed.
And in this world where a woman must constantly be seeking career advancement in order to be seen as competent as a man, I stick out. Not just in my classes, where I was the only married person, but in my family where I have achieved so much more than my relatives academically. My parents saw me as the career woman because I pushed against the idea of marriage so much. I didn't want my dreams to fall under someone else's, and as an introvert, I had no desire for extended human company beyond spoiling my eventual nieces and nephews.
I feel like I'm disappointing the world by feeling this way. Everywhere I look, even amongst my friends with children, they juggle jobs and babies, dinners and brunches, meetings and laundry. I don't feel the need. Since I met my husband, the desire to create something from nothing has become a refined 'create order from chaos' instinct. I no longer want to write or teach college. I don't view this, and I don't feel, as if my dreams are being subsumed by those of my husband, but that my passion has changed. I've been so focused on THIS idea of myself that I gave little to no thought to the alternatives, such as marriage.
My husband feels I've lost my 'sparkle'. My parents expect my to get a doctorate. My siblings continue to look to me as the accomplished and intelligent one, the one treading down the snow in front of them to make an easier path.
If I stop, they'll stop. I feel as if I've reached the end of caring about life for myself and the beginning of loving others so much, their existence takes up my life. Martyr-like though it sounds, it's just a fact of life for me. I don't feel as if I've lost something by giving up my dreams in exchange for new ones. Much like store credit. I don't feel bad that I'm returning a pair of jeans that don't fit my bulging belly in exchange for comfortable leggings. One was suitable for a different stage of my life, and now this is my reality. There can be no resentment in the truth.
I feel secure in what I want, yet I lack the words to describe to others how I feel, that for the first time in over 20 years, I am a changed person, so completely that my past self would not recognize me now. I've stayed consistent throughout the years, much to the chagrin of my parents, and to change now...
To add to the lot stacked against me, my husband's family, not just immediate, is filled with success stories of people who have gone on professional, globally acclaimed, dance teams, doctors, those who bike across the world for charity and interior decorators for yachts. There are programmers and professors of math and science, engineers, artists, even athletes. Comparison plagues humanity, no less so when that comparison is drawn between yourself and your in-laws.
Bottom line? I don't want to be a writer. I don't want to edit or publish anything, I don't want to work in a bookstore or really do anything beyond being there for my family. I "just" want to be a wife and mother. Those are my dreams. I have never reached for something I viewed as unattainable because I'm a realist, and the reality remains that my dreams are different than 2 years ago, my ambitions have gone through a drastic overhaul, and if there is something wrong with me, then God needs to be more clear about His intentions for me. I don't believe I am 'settling' for a domestic life; for the first time, I am aiming for it. I want to stay at home and feed my babies, I want to can and grow things in the garden and fix things in my car/house, I want to make afghans and quilts and be domestic. My dream is to live the rest of my life happy and content, and however low-shooting and unambitious as that makes me appear, it's the truth. I'm not going to say, 'It's my truth!' like a lot of sappy people who are too ashamed to admit the absolute nature of their statement. My ambition to be a mother is not my truth, it is the truth.
And if anyone has any thoughts on that, you can take a number.
Serving 8 billion and counting.
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