i am standing on a crossroads, it seems…and i don’t know which way to go.

my maternity leave ends tomorrow.

and i have been grieving. not overtly, but rather in a quiet, self-pitying, forlorn, why-the-bleep-does-the-world-hate-me kind of way. you know. subtly and maturely. none of my choices seem clear or simple from here, and the fact that i need to keep walking anyway, straight into the cloudy blur in front of me with O on my hip, gives me very real heartburn. both literal, and figurative.

the thing is, i’m spoiled…and i know it. i’m Canadian. in the year before O was born, i worked my way past the minimum 600 hours needed to qualify for the Canadian government’s employment-insurance-based maternity and parental benefits, and thus, from the time i went on bedrest at 25 weeks pregnant, i’ve been receiving approximately $1400 a month in benefits from Ottawa. plus this other $100 a month taxable bonus that they threw at us to avoid having to create new daycare spaces, but that’s another story. all in all, while i have not been getting rich sitting here on my childbirth enhanced arse caring for my offspring, the income has been nice. very much appreciated. not only has it enhanced our moderate but reasonable family income as earned by Dave, but it has made me feel like a contributing member of our partnership…because for all i value what i’m doing here at home with O – i read all the feminist manuals and hell, so did Dave – i do not feel particularly good about myself when i am not paying at least some of my own way.

(unless, of course, a potential sugar daddy happens to be reading this and would like to reward me for cavorting in lingerie whilst carrying a lavender-dyed poodle in my Gucci purse and slurping up champagne. if that’s you, and you’re dashing and have one of those turn-my-knees-weak Scottish brogues or something, forget i said anything about paying my own way. just understand that you are a sideline, good sir, and not my real life. and then, call me. Dave is a supporter of small-business enterprises, and would i’m sure appreciate my efforts to contribute to the family coffers. with maribou slippers on.)

in my real life, though, i don’t have a job to go back to when this mat leave ends. in my real life, i do have some money coming in for April, from editing and p/t teaching that i’ve been lucky enough to round up, but in my real life i know that very soon i have to make a decision between trying to juggle the feast or famine of freelance contract work or whoring myself out accepting something full-time but not necessarily rewarding or even reflective of my skills and experience. in my real life, i need to find a good, responsible, loving human being to care for O when i’m bringing in money, and i need to find her before i can actually give her a, say, starting date for my imaginary job-to-be, or tell her whether i’ll need part-time or full-time care. in my real life, i don’t know if p/t work will even bring enough in to pay a babysitter. in my real life, i have minor panic attacks late at night about the secret, hurtful things that might happen to my little boy if he spends all his days in some other house with a bunch of other kids and a frazzled caretaker, before he is big enough to even tell me what’s happening.

these are petty things, in the big picture, maybe. i have a roof over my head, and food for my loved ones. we can pay our heating bill, probably even if no job is forthcoming for me. i have the luxury of choosing – from a small pool, but still choosing – who will care for my child if i am away from him for work. my situation is not a social justice cause, i know. i know. but still…i am angry…confused. because there are so few jobs out there, here. because almost everyone in town whom i’ve told i’m looking has said, “oh, do you waitress?” or “oh, do you tutor?” and all my life, until now, i’ve jumped at whatever’s come up, to pay the bills. i’ve never been proud, or particularly ambitious. but suddenly, i’m furious. i’m thirty-five years old. i have an MA, part of a Ph.D, and more than a decade of teaching and administrative experience. i want secure, rewarding work that makes leaving O worthwhile, and an income more than i could have made straight out of high school if i were a labouring male in this stupid economy. i want clear choices, dammit, not this amorphous limbo that makes me feel passive and powerless. if i stay at home, even some of the time, i want it to be because i’ve chosen that, not because i have some mysterious suck-gene that makes people seem to want to under-employ me on an ongoing, forever kinda basis.

i have discovered my sense of entitlement. thank you, no, i do not want to waitress this summer. not anymore. i’m sorry. fuck off.

if anyone has some nice cheese for my whine, please share.

i don’t understand where all this fury is coming from…nor my confusion, my paralysis. maybe it’s this unfamiliar “let’s wait and maybe the options will look better” kind of flavour in my mouth.

i mentioned last week that i used to make decisions pretty easily. my pre-parenthood self was a wanderer…looking for home and worth and experience, trying to trace the line of greatest reward between responsibility and recklessness. the act of choice was something i thrived on…assessing the paths different opportunities presented, weighing my options, and committing. and usually, at sucking up the inevitable limitations or hardships or responsibilities that came with the paths i’d selected…or, at the very least, at changing paths. i have been living with the consequences of choosing for a very long time.

but now, the consequences are not just mine to bear. there is O. there is O. he changes everything.

and so i waffle, at this crossroads, unsure whether even focusing on trying to start a decent career here is silly at this point. wondering if i don’t, will i ever? will i miss that boat permanently, having waited this long? should i commit to the small, piecemeal things available that i could do in my sleep, despite the crazy schedule and juggling and stress they’d bring with them, or bring out the big guns of my job application skills for the handful of fulltime jobs that are likely to crop up over the next few months, and hope it all works out for O?

i do not know. i do not know what’s best. i do not even know possible, or what’s good, here…for Oscar, for me, for Dave. i’m just stumbling along, from here…no longer trying to balance between recklessness and responsibility, but between various responsibilities: to my child, to my sense of self, to my family. i have finally become exactly what my mother aspired for me my entire life – painfully middle class. oy. now if i could get a nice middle-class job and buy her a nice little house to retire in…
sweet lips of Jesus, help me walk.