Looking

It was an emotional surge of frustration that caused me to quickly grind out a resume in less than five minutes and submit it online before even proofreading it. Then for the next two days I swung madly between fervently hoping that I got a call to desperately wishing that I wouldn’t.

The job has been taken down, the position has been filled and I don’t know if I’m happy about that or not.

Here’s the thing - I’m happy to be a stay at home mom. Thrilled, in fact. I love not having to be anywhere at a specific time, I love not waking up to an alarm clock (although crying babies are not all that much better), and I love being the one, even if the only one, taking care of my kids. In a perfect situation I would be ecstatic to stay home with them until they went to school. However, we’re not in a perfect situation. We are so strapped for money, our home is far from ideal and I’ve just . . . . had it. I feel like I’ve reached my limit on what I can stand. Staying at home is fine, staying at someone else’s home and having to put up with all that goes with it because you can’t speak up because it’s not your place to begin with, well, it gets to a person.

I don’t know if I’m ready to leave them everyday. There just aren’t that many options right now. On one hand I feel so lucky that I’ve gotten to spend this much time with them and on the other, I could spend more.

Where do I go from here? Should I actively pursue seeking a new job? Or should I just wait and see how far our money can stretch and for how long? I wish sometimes that the answers were obvious and available.