What is success? How do you know if you are successful? Who sets the standards on how success is measured?
These are some questions that I've been sitting with recently. A month ago I quit my job as a teacher to work from home. I plan on doing day care from home so that I can be home full time with the little one. While being a parent is definitely a full time job.. I feel like I should be doing something else to contribute to society. I have always wanted to start a non-profit after school program for girls. But I know I don't have the time to do that now.. so I was thinking of maybe mentoring or doing some other volunteer work in the mean time. Right now I'm not sure how I'm going to juggle volunteering, raising the little one and starting a home business. The desire is definitely there but I'm just not sure if the timing is right. I just can't help feeling like I need to be doing something other than just being Micah's mother.
And that brings me back to the idea of what is success and who decides what it looks like. If I'm happy and I'm raising a happy well rounded toddler.. shouldn't that be enough?
I'm also struggling with the same concept when it comes to my relationship with my baby daddy. After going to therapy, several attempted break ups, soul searching, and endless nights of discussion.. I think we have finally achieved balance and peace in our relationship. I think for the first time in four years I really feel like I can see us going the distance together as a team. We still don't live together.. and we may never.. but I feel like I'm finally getting what I need from the relationship. We have even discussed working on baby number two in the near future.
However when I talk to my girlfriends about all the progress that we have made they still can't let go of the marriage issue. I have told them, my aunts, grandmothers and practical strangers that I do not feel the need to be married. But no one believes me! People have told me that I'm settling and that I don't want to get married because he doesn't want to get married. But honestly.. I just want to be happy. I just want peace. I want our little non-traditional family to be happy. So whether we live under different roofs, or have different last names I really don't care just as long as we're all happy and healthy. And at the end of the day.. isn't that really what success is?
