It was spring of senior year at Meredith and the question was not unexpected. I'd heard it framed in many ways again and again over the course of the year... What are you doing after graduation? I was supposed to have a plan. Like a real one, not just going to the beach then home to Mama and Daddy. The question kept coming from all angles and my answer never settled. Finally, sitting on a picnic table beside a little lake there in Raleigh, I blurted out.... I'll either be a writer or get married and have children. There. I said it. And it felt true.
Then came the inevitable follow-up... why not both? Why not, indeed? I marched into womanhood under the "you can have it all" banner. I cheered for my friends who were headed down big career paths while planning early summer weddings from their dorm rooms. I had ideas of more school - law school - getting right up to the very brink and backing away. Some might call it fear but it felt more like discernment. The right-ness was missing. I got what I thought at the time was solid career advice as I admitted to a hiring manager that I really wanted to be a writer. He told me never to do what I loved as a job because I would wind up hating it. And so, I took the job he offered - wondering since if his "advice" was a tad bit manipulative.
Pretty soon, I met this really great guy at church. We got dressed up in black and white, made some promises in front of God and everybody, and set off together down the road of marriage and children. I have gathered a bushel of regrets along the way but none about the path. That this is my destiny, I have zero doubt.
The children came along - two perfect boys - and with them a succession of years when I spent every last morsel of energy keeping them alive and relatively clean. When I agonized over sending them out into a world that wasn't always kind. I was - and am - far from perfect but oh so grateful that I didn't have to face the constant Insta-model-mom barrage. I would have folded like a fitted sheet. Translation: I would have been a wadded up ball of wrinkled cotton. By the grace of God - and I mean that literally - we all survived and those little boys are all grown up and responsible for keeping other perfect little people alive and relatively clean now. And doing a magnificent job I might add!
I will admit that there have been times along the way when I thought about the writing thing - have eked out a few lines here and there. Dreamt about writing the great American novel. Crafting something that would have an impact on others the way great books make an impression on me. A magnum opus, if you will. But here's the thing I inherently knew way back at that picnic table... writing is not for the faint of heart. It's like giving birth, word by word, over and over. Writing is labor - maybe it's what that hiring manager was trying to say. It can be agonizing and gut wrenching and once it's out, you have to hand it off to a world that may or may not be kind. Writing requires full-on-engagement and even if it comes out somewhat well it still leaves you weak and worn out. I know some do, but I cannot imagine raising children and consistently producing/expressing semi-coherent thoughts on paper. I struggle to scrape up enough energy to get out a few words here and there and my day-to-day child rearing is over. Never mind some giant work.
What I'm laboring to say here is that I think the hiring manager guy inadvertently saved my life. I cannot say what's best for everyone, but I do know that, for me, I had to be fully present in one life. I chose family - or, more accurately, family chose me. And I have not one regret about those choices. Turns out, my best life-work is not a book or a poem or a blog post - it's a family. Steve, Justin, Jordan, Grace, Kristen, Emmalyn, Ella Bea, Madison, Coleman, Harper - you are my magnum opus. And I am forever grateful that God saw fit to have it this way.
Seems like Mama had this same epiphany long before I did. She sent me a card many years ago that I count among my most cherished possessions. I will pack it first if we ever evacuate for a hurricane. Here's what it says: Of everything I've ever done in my life, raising a wonderful daughter like you is one of the things I'm proudest of. And if I never accomplish anything else at all, I will still look at the special, caring person you are and know I've done something wonderful for the world. - Love Mother. Same, Mama. Same. Selah.
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