Another Step Toward Being the Best Me

Recently I got my first paid writing job. Huffington Post here I come! Well, maybe. But I am also realistic and know that freelance writing is not going to pay a whole lot of bills and even the best writers sometimes need “day jobs”. Having not much interest in returning to the classroom where I spent twenty years teaching English to teenagers, I needed an alternative.

My first thought was to buy a used book store in my little town, but the reality of owning a shop and the hours that went along with it, threw a drippy wet blanket on that idea, and also caused me to rethink my fallback idea of opening a coffee shop. Running a small business would take time from my writing as well as my family, and when I was honest with myself, I had to admit that waiting on people was not my forté. In fact, I really hate the whole service industry thing. I've only held two such jobs in my life. One I got fired from and the other I left before they could fire me.

But then a new yoga studio opened up in town. It occupied a small space above the bookstore I’d toyed with buying. Run by the most Zen-like woman I have ever met, I was inspired. Perhaps yoga, which I love almost as much as writing, was meant to be my day job path?

It's all very interesting. Three years ago I was a high school teacher in a drop out prevention program. I was making respectable money and had benefits for which many people would trade healthy limbs. And I left it all behind to be an immigrant internet bride and take a chance on a writing talent that I'd always taken for granted. If I had been asked about the likelihood of my trading a secure financial future in a known career for the iffy world of a freelancer who needed to pick up grocery money with a day job, I'd have been stricken too dumb to reply. I am a second wave feminist. I came of age in the early 80's when women were being told in no uncertain terms to take care of ourselves because we couldn't count on anyone to do it for us anymore. Not that anyone was offering, but that was the mantra when I entered college and later made my way into the adult world.

I have a good friend friend from my college days who lived that free-spirit life. Jobs that mattered only because they paid bills while she dedicated herself to her art. If she worried much, it didn't show. She was happy and true to herself. I envied her.

But now I can see where someone might envy me. There is a little bit of elitism in my life. I couldn't have taken the steps I have toward a writing career if it were not for my husband's stable employment and his willingness to be a slave to the man while I clack away at the keyboard and seek enlightenment, and part time job prospects, through Yoga. I know some people who allow the guilt associated with being lucky to keep them from dreaming and following those dreams, but I don't think I will join them. Despite my fear of what the future would hold if something happened to my husband and I found myself needing more than nickels and dimes to live off, if I let every doom scenario in my head have its day, I wouldn't get out of bed, would I?

So come January it is off to yogina school I go to strengthen my own practice of yoga and to learn to teach others. While I still struggle with the writing (I have yet to figure out how to please my new editor and fear that might be beyond me), I am certain of the yoga path. It has been calling for a while and I am finally listening.

This is an original 50 Something Moms Post by Ann Bibby of Care2 and anniegirl1138.