Timing is everything these days. Two weeks left in our house. Less than a month left in Washington. One month until we visit our families for the holidays. A month and a half until we close on our new house. And that's just the moving related timing.
Lately I've been starting to think very hard about the future. As my life is currently scheduled out, I will take the next term off of school to deal with the move. I was hoping to return to class in January, but because I get a reduced military tuition, I have to take off the entire term, meaning I won't return until March. That will put me finishing classes at the end of August, and *hopefully* beginning my 16-week student teaching period from September through December of next year.
At which point I will begin looking for an actual teaching job. In a county that just laid off all of its first-year teachers and is now hiring back RIF-ed teachers and those laid off first year teachers before even looking at any outside applicants. In a county that is not even currently in need of substitute teachers.
If I am *lucky* I'll be able to find a teaching job for the 2011/2012 school year. At which point I will be just months away from turning twenty-nine.
And let me let you in on a little secret. I've been thinking a lot about babies lately. And I don't think I'm the only one in my household whose mind has edged a little closer to that track. Am I ready to start popping out infants the moment we get to Charleston? No. But am I thinking it's a little unlikely that I'll actually want to hold out another 4 years or so until we're settled into our next assignment? Yes.
Another factoid that is less than a secret is that I have no desire to be a working mother. I place absolutely no judgment on those who ARE working mothers, and in fact I appreciate their decision at least in part for the fact that it's currently keeping me in a job. But I've worked in daycares off and on for my whole life. They can be really wonderful environments for a child, but that's just not how I want my child raised. We're lucky enough that Colby's job could support a family independently, so it is my hope that I can be home with our children.
But are we seeing how the time lines are starting to get a little mangled at this point? If I finish school and start teaching in the fall of 2011, that's right around the time that I'm starting to think I may want to get pregnant. And so I sit here wondering, have I just thrown away all of this money on my education? Is it the right thing to continue spending thousands of dollars on a Masters degree that, it is beginning to look highly likely at this point, I'll never get to use?
I honestly don't know what to do. There's a big part of me that feels completely disappointed in myself. Why did I wait so long to pursue my teaching dreams? Why can't I be a more modern gal and be okay with the idea of working and raising a family? If I don't stay in school, what the hell am I going to do with myself for the next few years until I actually manufacture a child? Am I just being a giant quitter? I have no idea.
I've got just over three months to figure this out, and if the speed at which the past three months have flown by is any indication, that is no time at all. Maybe it's time to pull out that Magic 8 Ball?
