IF and the art of home renovation

Thanks for all your comments, insight, and support in reaction to my professional angst. Wait--does that mean I'm getting paid for being confused? I wish.

We've basically ripped up and out almost all the nasty remnants of decades of shoddy repairs and poor taste. These were projects we had delayed for months and months. What, I wonder, has sparked this sudden, new obsession with domestic search and destroy?

I hear from books and stuff that pregnant women and their partners get all nesty and start making their home ready for their new arrival. While I might technically still be pregnant, that clearly isn't it. We're taking control of the mess our lives have become, and discovering, unexpectedly, that the way out of the mess may take some time and energy to find and follow, but it's right there.

While taking a break from our fumey, grouty labors, I talked with my guy about my many jumbled thoughts and feelings regarding what I'd like to do for the next decade or two. During our discussion, I realized I want to stay here. It may not be an easy path, to forge my own, new approach to scholarship, but it will be the best fit and likely the most rewarding in the long run.

And just so you know, my plan doesn't include making a living from that work necessarily. Instead, I'll likely work elsewhere (I've got a mini-career as a pr writer already launched) hopefully as a telecommuter. Really, the only practical concern we have is health insurance, because, alas alack, once my guy quits his current job to become a full-time farmer, we'll be uninsured. But whatever. We've got time to solve that one.

I realized that my desire to become many things in my life--a mother, a professor or other professional, a wife--has been colored by certain, unhelpful patterns: I must be special, no matter what it costs me. This outward appearance of excellence makes life so hollow for me. I don't care what my car says about me. I like an attractive living space, but for my own pleasure. I'd like to raise a child, but IF has divorced that longing to love from the precious visions of enlightened modern parenting so many fertiles fall into, without realizing it.

Yes, I would have been one of those self-righteous biyoches telling you to relax and do some mediation or something while fishing for a wholewheat organic teething biscuit for little Arden Louise lolling in a hemp onesie or something. Though I've been subject to suffering, I've been spared that ignorance. And should we get our heart's desire, this kid will be showered with genuine love (and hopefully sheltered from the worst winds of our misplaced egos and expectations).

So, by ripping out the fireplace doors and dehazing the nice new white tile in the formerly Satanic bath, we're making a new home for ourselves, our relationship, our hopes. We're putting down some roots, opting for substance and the slow fix as opposed to myth and instant gratification.