I sat down to write at the computer and wrestle with the anxiety I feel in the face of a new project. The anxiety has nothing to do with the creative process and everything to do with the schedule tweaking and changes. Dinner, homework, school pick-up and drop-off all must be considered and coordinated in addition to any affect on my own scheduled commitments. It bothered me enough that I woke up worried about it in the middle of the night.
But, now, completely apart from my worries, the times of the workshops have been changed and the schedule changes I was working on with other people no longer have to happen. I feel relief. Unless the schedule changes have already been made. Then I will feel bad.
This is the worst part of freelance creative work while juggling parenthood. And I don’t even “work”. This is the reason women who can stop working. I have read that one can continue to work at the former level with one child but with two or more it all goes out the window. Most of the “stay-at-home” moms I see on the playground after school have two or three kinds. There aren’t enough sick days in the average job to cover for the strep throats and vomiting flus of four people.
When one of my friends (who didn’t get a new job after her husband’s last cross country transfer) spoke of feeling guilty, sorry for her child who had gotten sick first, because she waited until all 3 kids had it before she made an appointment with the pediatrician because she had “already taken too much time off work” and she wanted to save at least a day or two to use for Christmas vacation.
As my daughter gets older, I realize how short a time we have the needy little kids in our homes. My Kid is 9. In as much time as we’ve had her with us she will want to be on her own. (She will probably still be in school and she probably won’t be able to afford to leave us, but she will want to).
Anyway, one of the biggest incentives for doing this project was the fact that I could do it while my daughter was in school without disrupting her day. When I found out other conflicts were involved I became less enthusiastic. Now that the rest of my schedule does not have to change around like so many blocks in a toy tower, I can relax and enjoy the ride.