For about 18 months or so I have been freelance writing for a local family magazine. What began as an occasional and unpaid activity has become a regular column that gives me a little extra spending money. I may begin writing for the magazine's recently launched blog.
The best things about freelancing for this magazine are that I can do 90% of my work from home, at any time of the day, and I write about family life.
Having been out of the full-time workforce for almost 8 years, it has been a little weird to be "professional" again. I have become so accustomed to behaving as N, G and M's mom that I don't really remember how to behave as Carrie, the employee. It is a very loose facade I wear, and I am forever fretting that I may lapse into talking about poop or Optimus Prime or Elmo or Justin Bieber or some other conversation that is completely out of line with what regular grownups in regular jobs discuss regularly.
I have more or less decided that when M begins kindergarten I will begin subbing at the kids' schools as well as for former colleagues and friends who are still in the ranks. A couple days a week with maybe one long-term subbing job periodically would be ideal. I would still be able to do things at home and spend time with my mom. Within the next five years it would make me incredibly happy to go out to lunch with her and not have to hit the exit within 30 minutes before the kids morph into banshees.
As much as thinking about doing this sometimes feels like a light at the end of what will be an 11-year tunnel of full-time stay-at-home mothering and its associated drudgeries, I also know how much I sometimes really, really enjoy being home with the boys, our little routine of just us, and how much neat stuff I was able to do with N before she began kindergarten.
For now, the freelancing gig is perfect. It gives me a little self-esteem boost and intellectual challenge but allows my heart to stay where it needs to be----at home with my kids.
No comments:
Post a Comment