Solo Mother

Life Goals

by christina on November 15th, 2006

At a (second) job interview last week, one of the principals of the company asked me, “What’s your ideal job?”

I will only work for people who treat me like a responsible adult. I do not want to work for a clock watcher — they only ever seem to notice when you’re two minutes late, but conveniently forget you stayed up all night getting the presentation done. I’d like to work in a positioni that is fairly creative, that allows me to don my thinking cap and work on puzzles and problems. I’d like a job where I can work from 8:30 a.m.-4:00 p.m., get the kid from aftercare by 4:30, and have some quality time with the light of my life. I’d happily work late after he’s in bed to make up that hour off the clock. But these days of two hours with my boy are breaking my heart (at night, when it’s time for bed and the lights go out, he always asks me to snuggle with him, and sleep with him… I hold him til he falls asleep, and then cook tomorrow’s dinner, put his lunch together for the next day, clean the house, work on solomother and other freelance projects I can’t do during the day, and then crash at around one in the morning. At around five, he wakes up and calls to me, and the only way he’ll go back to sleep is if I hold him again). I want my boy back. I miss him. I don’t like that Other People are raising him more than I am. I want some input into his life beyond Doctor Seuss and brushing teeth.

“Where do you see yourself in five years?”

Well, besides the obvious things: divorced and happy… where did I see myself? I’ve been the kind of person who has taken care of others all her adult life, giving too much of herself to the men in her life and not reserving enough to live on, for her own needs. Now that I’m free of such silly notions, what do I want to do with myself?

“Write a book,” I blurted out. No, I didn’t know what kind of book, though several well-meaning friends have suggested I write about my own life (erm. yawn. you guys really don’t want to know about my life. it’s pretty… boring, homelessness and hand to mouth existence aside). I’ve been thinking about writing a book about online communications, about new media, about something… I don’t know if I have a fiction novel in me. We’ll see. And the trouble with new media writing is… by the time it’s published, it’s obsolete. I just know I’d like to publish something bound and stitched.

I’d also like to be making six figures. It will mean an incredible jump in salary every year. We’re talking doubling what I might make right now.

I’d like to graduate from university, finally. A friend sent me a link to an incredible institution that’s basically free, only about a thousand dollars a semester or something. With childcare on site. We’ll see. It would mean relocating. Putting all my hard-won furniture into storage. Uprooting the kid again. We’ll see.

I’d like to be producing ceramics and pottery again. It’s not a desire that goes hand in hand with making six figures. I guess, if I can make a comfortable living, that will get me closer to being able to retire off to some little cottage somwhere near the seaside and sell bowls and sculpture to tourists.

In five years, my child will be almost nine.

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