Everything Must Change

OMG! He's two months old! Time is flying by ever so quickly!
Motherhood is such a challenge. Everyday, every minute is about change - changing diapers, changing clothes, chaning spaces, an ever changing baby, even my own changing body. Funny thing is, I don't deal well with change....

We went to a lecture today. A scholar, with whom I'm merely barely acquainted, was visiting campus so we went to hear her speak of way making, ancestors who are immortal (which is, I will forever maintain, the wrong word for what she's attempting to say but, well, she's stuck in a particular framework that uses that word so...) and "creative transformation". In short, it's all about change. Quite a theme for the day, I think.

Transitioning from thinking, to planning, to trying, to being - the process of Single Motherhood by Choice - is replete with change. I can honestly say I'm not the same person I was when I was a Thinker or a Planner or even a Tryer. But it's on even a smaller level than that. My expectations have changed, my goals have changed, my fears have changed, my hopes have changed. Everything has changed.

That simple truth has caused life to be so difficult right now. I came to New Jersey to get a degree. That's it. A singular goal with 3 parts: Course work, exams, dissertation. I planned 4 years, maximum. I'm in my fourth year now, and everything has changed.
When I got here, I was so focused on my career. I had my career planned, my life planned. I knew how to be successful in the academy. I was focused and motivated. Then it all changed.

At some point I decided that the academy wasn't enough. Now I wonder if the decision I made was more like, "I'm not doing this at all" than "I need a real life". I wonder if I made a choice between family and this degree. I'm clear, to the core of my heart, that I made the right decision, chose the correct option. But I thought I was choosing to have it all. When did that change? Why does it have to change?


I'm trying to get my scholastic ass in gear. I need to propose exams. I need to write one simple paragraph for three different exams. That takes a focus that I just cannot seem to find right now. I blame it on the time issue, but that's not so much the truth. I just find it difficult to focus on violence and neo-orthodoxy and Schleiermacher when I have the most adorable infant I've ever seen. And I'm stressed because of it. Something has to change.
For the first time... well, in the last few years, I asked myself if or not I actually want to finish this degree. I don't really think I have any passion for it anymore. It's more of a way to make sure my child is fed. And that about it. I don't know if this is something you can do if you're not passionate about it. Did I choose a family in lieu of a career? Is that old axiom true? Can you really not have it all?
OMFG!
For years and years, women have heard that we have to choose between family and a career. I refuse to make that choice. At least I thought I did. But, by choosing single motherhood, did I, in fact, make a de facto choice?