A little melancholy

I hate to be sad, I really do, but last night I had one of those nights where I couldn't sleep...which inevitably leads to my thinking too much. And if I don't write it out, I will honestly sit around and dwell on it all day, which wouldn't be good.

I hate that summer is half over. As much as I pretend that my working outside of the house for ten months of the year is properly balanced by the two months of the summer is okay, it's not. The thought of leaving Luke in a month tears at my heart. Working outside of the home is not what I want to do, it's what I have to do. It frustrates me because I've essentially picked a career that makes it impossible to either work park-time or work from home. If only I knew, but 8 years ago, I would've told you that I had no interest in ever staying home with kids. Even when I was pregnant, I remember telling my midwife that I was taking six months off, and that by the time those six months were up, I was sure I'd be ready to go back to work. Well, I wasn't. I'm still not. I guess that in my mind, I always thought that staying at home would be boring, but I know now that it's anything BUT boring. Although Luke's sitter does an amazing job, she's not me. And to say I'm jealous of the eight hours a day she gets to spend with him would be an understatement.
Sometimes I feel very out of place. I have a lot of friends, but none of them have children, so I'm losing common ground. I don't have any mom friends, and there really aren't any mom type things that are geared toward working moms. I don't get to go on playdates or do any of those things, and I feel like that's missing. I would love to sit on a park bench with the other moms and watch our kids play together!

I am always hoping and praying that something else will come along, that I'll work out a way to stay home or at least work part-time. The thing is, we can't really survive on just Shane's income because the state of Indiana grossly underpays teachers, but I don't think we need two full-time incomes to survive, either. I would absolutely love to teach night classes, but the GED classes are already underfunded, so they aren't exactly hiring. Ever.

I feel pathetic writing this all out, because it's not something I talk about very often, but it's something I think about too much. I guess there is a fear, too. I don't want to take that plunge without having a backup plan, another source of income waiting. And what if I do take that plunge and find out that it doesn't work? It's hard to get hired in school systems as it is, and I don't know if they'd take me back if I didn't work for a year, then said, Oops! Changed my mind!

I hate this. I wish it didn't gnaw at my heart, but it does.