All the eggs in whose basket?

It's important to maintain one's sense of self. It is ALWAYS important never to put all your eggs in one basket. When we go about life where we try to put all our energy towards one goal, we neglect most other things in our lives. If we dedicate ourselves entirely to a career, we often neglect our family.
If we dedicate ourselves to a family, we neglect friends (think of all those people who have babies and are suddenly unable to do anything. And if they do happen to invite you over for dinner, there you are trying to have a conversation with the person, who can't seem to pull meaning from any more than two words that you utter in a row because they are so absorbed in the baby. They kindly pretend to listen to your story about trying to buying an apartment or dating a new guy or even a funny story about some asshole who was hassling you in the mall, but they honestly could give a shit less. In fact, what they are really thinking about is when they last changed the kids diapers, whether they need to take the kid to the doctor if they don't stop crying soon, or admiring their new stroller purchase- speaking of which, how boring are these people to spend time with? I have always thought it would be fun to test them- tell them you were recently raped in a matter of fact tone, and they would nod and smile politely. But if you actually told them you were pregnant you would get the earth shattering ear piercing scream of a sorority girl who just scored a date with Tom Brady.).

All of us know people like this. It is the most frustrating thing to be around if you are single or are married and just don't want to treat your kids like they were the number one reason for the existence of the universe and the number one reason for high school friendships to deteriorate. One of my best friends had a kid and suddenly disappeared off the face of the earth. If you tried to spend time with her, her attention span was about as expansive as Paris Hilton's vocabulary, “That's hot”. I have kind of let go of friends like this, because unless you decide to be just like them and join the parents anonymous group, you really have no chance of breaking through the insanity.

Not to be hypocritical, I'm sure that when I have a kid, I will be very focused on it for a while and excited. However, I don't plan to structure my life around trying to find the perfect baby clothes and being the perfect housewife. I fully intend to continue a career and be emotionally capable of leaving my kid at home with a sitter or a nanny while I go out with my husband. I want to be able to send it to summer camp and let it learn to separate from me, to be an individual. I don't want it to be codependent upon me, unable to spend one waking moment without me (many of my friends, who didn't have enough money to afford a baby, so spend every second with it and never go out or have lives- even after 4 years). I fully realize the impact a child can have on your life and that's why prior to having one I plan to a. want a child, and b. be financially satisfied with my life and have a set career. I do NOT want to be the mom who all she can talk about is her kid. She completely loses her identity and can't carry on a conversation about herself. You (much less she) have no idea who the fuck she is anymore. All you see is an empty shell of a person who has sacrificed everything for being a mother. This is not my idea of a fulfilling life. This is for people who can't fill a void that they have in their lives, so they decide to distract themselves by throwing themselves fully into the role of “mommy”. Sad thing about this is that when the kid gets to be 18, not only do you have a child who is has serious separation anxiety problems, or hates his parents, you have the same void waiting to be filled when they leave for college. Only then, you're all alone while your husband is probably off having an affair because you've lost track of your relationship and it's twenty years since you've had a job or any idea of what you want to do. Yes, that's a bit depressing and may be a slight exaggeration, but totally true.

All I know is that I haven't heard as many people at 30 complaining that they haven't had children yet. Most people talk about how they had children too young and wish they would have waited because it seems like they've “lost the last few years of my life”. When I see women with two children at my gym telling me, “gosh I miss not having children. These are the only moments to myself”, I feel justified in my decision to wait until I have my own shit settled before screwing up a kid.
Okay, that's enough of my rampage on people who can't stop following their babies around or tracking every fart or burp that passes through their baby's body. But, you catch my drift. This will be a God Bless America (ha) speech. As a country, we are obsessive people. We go full throttle with everything that we see in our lives. I am guilty of it too. In pursuit of being a licensed social worker, I spent four years sacrificing my entire life for one goal. In fact, I did it almost to the extent of burning myself out of social work completely. I felt that no matter what sacrifices needed to be made, they were going to be made. So, I sacrificed my social life, my relationship (to some extent, luckily he was nice enough to stick around and put up with my neuroses), and my interests putting them aside as “not important right now”. I was also reminded on a daily basis that there was something wrong with me and it wasn't that they were important, but that why would I need to engage in such activities.

The only thing that kept me going was running. Don't ask if I was “running away from my job” figuratively or literally, but I was running on a obsessive level, up to 70 miles a week, training for a marathon. I felt like this was the only thing that I could control. In fact, this was the only thing where I could set goals and reach them, and also maintain enough to get away from work.


But how is it fulfilling to spend your entire days getting up at the butt crack of dawn, running 6 miles, going to work for 8-10 hour days and then running another 6 miles at night, being the only way you could wind down enough to shut up about your job (that and guzzling three glasses of wine after your done). Oh, and if you mention you run at work, you hear, “it's really bad for your knees, I can't run”. Of course you can't run you uberfat ass- you weigh 300 lbs. I love how she gets heavier every time. So, hearing that my coping mechanisms weren't even good enough was pretty frustrating.

And they weren't, in fact. I ran until I couldn't even walk around. I was limping before the marathon from medial tendonitis. Nothing serious, but I thought maybe I had a torn miniscus which was a real scare. Sadly, this was the last straw as far as my job was concerned and when I decided to quit. I calculated that I spent roughly 40% of my income in the last two months of work on doctor's bills and massage and other “self care”. It's not like I was making shit anyway. I've never been so obsessive before in my life. I also recognized that if I didn't run that I would seriously not know what to do. I think I would have had a complete breakdown without running. Running and this event pretty much saved my life.

Anyway, I digress. The point is, that my entire identity was based upon doing something that was physically and emotionally painful for at least 40 hours a week and spent the rest of my free time trying to disengage from it, rather than actually letting my career be a part of who I was. I was trying to forget it. I felt like a shell of myself, and really literally was. This was a difficult time. I spent four months trying to piece myself together again, and only now, by making little steps do I realize how much work it took to rebuild.

So, the moral of the story is that you can't put all your eggs in one basket without losing yourself. At least for me being a Gemini, I have a lot of interests and things that I enjoy. My career is just a piece of that. There are way to many other things that are important to me and have helped me maintain balance in my life. These are the things that it's important to incorporate into my work and my life now. Achieve balance by utilizing ALL of my interests. Just because the social workers I was surrounded by did not have that need (granted most of the didn't have any interests), I do have it. And that does not make me crazy or a problem. It makes me unique and better than everyone else! I am a superior being (O: