Career versus Love. This was my dilemma for the first few years of married life. I’ve always been a career girl; I’ve been working since the age of three.
In my first job, I sold jewelry in my parent’s business. Early on, my parents plopped me behind a cash register, and I started ringing up sales. Even though I couldn’t read (I was only three, remember?), I quickly learned to calculate 6% sales tax in my head and jealously guard the inventory against shrinkage. Career versus love was not a problem in those days. (I was three!)
My second job arrived at the age of nine: Show Biz, Baby! I wanted to be on the big screen (or a small TV screen with the rabbit ears…I’d take whatever I could get). At nine years old, I called up a talent agent, set up an appointment to meet the agent and later told Dad about it. (I was a precocious gal.) Being the nice, cautious father that he is, he took me to meet the person and decided to entertain this interest of mine. A couple weeks later I landed my first job on a television commercial. That career lasted for over a decade. Career versus love was not a problem as an actress either. I was too concerned with school and auditions to worry about icky boys with cooties.
Then I married a Navy man, and my vision of what a career gal should be changed.
Life went topsy turvy for me after marriage. Along with all the ups and downs that come with adjusting to married life, I had to come to grips with the fact that none of my husband’s duty stations were in New York or Los Angeles (where all the acting work could be found). That was tough for me, and I suffered an identity crisis early on. I sucked it up, put on a false face and entered the dreaded Cubicle Nation.
I told myself this was what a good, supportive Navy wife does. They stuff all their dreams in an invisible closet and do the wife thing. (What is the wife thing?) In reality, I was miserable, but I kept telling myself this was all part of being married. That wasn’t true. I made up a lie and created unnecessary heartache.
Looking back, I know I created that lie because I feared being an artist again; I didn’t want to take the scary plunge into living a creative life. It is a road less traveled. It was cool to be an artist as a kid, but all kids grow up eventually and join the Real World, right?
Despite this, I had a creative itch that needed to be scratched, but I was nowhere near NY or LA. So, I started writing. Writing was a portable job which suited my military spouse lifestyle. During the regular work week, before I went to Cubicle Nation, I woke up in the wee hours of the morning and wrote about anything that came to mind. Most of it was my mental ramblings, but the act of putting pen to paper centered me. During those early morning hours before I left for the day job, my creative fire was re-lit.
After about a year of this (and with my awesome husband’s blessing), I left Cubicle Nation for good. I wrote more frequently, dabbling in different types of novels and articles and such. Shortly thereafter, I had my first child and something happened, my writing hobby went into overdrive.
I wrote while feeding the baby.
I wrote in between feeding the baby.
I wrote while sitting in the park with the baby.
I wrote while the baby napped.
The act of regularly and consciously putting pen to paper during those new mama days enabled me to tap into an inner strength which I never knew existed. I realized I could be an artist and married and a mama. I didn’t have to sacrifice one lifestyle for the other.
I found my center. I found my peace.
Career versus love didn’t have to be a choice. A lot of times, women feel like they have to make an either or type of sacrificial act to keep everything balance like in the case of career versus love and family. To me, that’s a big, fat lie.
You can pursue your passion, and you can pursue love. I don’t think they are mutually exclusive. I don’t believe God gives an individual a great passion for a particular vocation and then says: “Sorry, buddy, you can ‘t do that anymore. You’re a (wife, husband, mom, dad) now. Those days are over.”
What do you think?
I agree. You may want to figure out why people don’t want to chase their dream. Is it fear, a true enemy/hardship, or excuses? Do you provide personal coaching to assist individuals to take the big leap of faith to chase after their dream?
I think you are right on here, Preslaysa. I think for many – especially women – there are many seasons of life. This can be difficult, because it seems that just when we are achieving competency, the landscape changes. It’s easy to be discouraged. But the reality is just as you’ve discovered — there are multiple paths and many options for incorporating love, career, parenting, etc. For me, I left a career when my children were little, worked in the volunteer world for years, and then started my own company as my girls got older. I’m thankful for the variety I’ve experienced, and I think in the end its made me a more empathetic and understanding person.