I love my extended family. Families share so many values, traditions and memories. Families believe in you and have high hopes for you.
Which is why I sometimes feel like wearing a high hope-proof vest.
To brutally misquote Isaiah 55:8: Your hopes are not my hopes and your ways are not my ways, saith Angeline.
My mom's siblings are an academic bunch: psychologist, author/life coach, social worker, corporate lawyer, businessman, programmer. (As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are their incomes higher than mine.) From the time I was knee high to a microfiche, I was told the virtues of marrying late and getting a Masters and a high paying, prestigious career in an academic profession. (Plumbers make good money but that doesn't count. Which is okay, because I'd make a terrible plumber.)
Masters degree - check. Academic career - check. Prestigious - well, my articles have been read by thousands across the country and two have earned awards (see Disabilities and Simplicity links to read the award-winning stories). High paying - not so much. And you can't get married much younger than 21, can you? (I mean legally.)
So at family gatherings as I field the questions: "Why aren't you writing for more publications? Why are you teaching only one class?" I sense a disappointment. Dashed hopes. (When I start talking about drying the dishes by hand their eyes really start to tear up.) I imagine I can hear the unasked questions: "Why is she wasting her education?" "Why isn't she more motivated?"
"Why isn't she like us?"
A few years ago I was more motivated. And miserable. I felt like I had to prove myself to the world by publishing more, winning more, earning more. More, more, more.
No more. I'm at peace with myself and what I do. I write and teach because I enjoy it. I also bake pies and scrub shower tiles because I enjoy it. And I walk kids home for lunch through the park and chat with them about airships and pirates, mermaids and heaven, because I really, really enjoy it!
To take Isaiah 55 in context, God's ways are higher than ours as the heavens are higher than the earth; meaning we're all on the same earth, equal before him and equally below him. I may not have fully lived up to my family's hopes and values, but I am learning to listen to God's way for my life.
I don't want to be like the man Walker Percy was describing when he said, "He got all 'A's' and flunked life." (Which is why I intentionally got some B's in college to make time for important things like donut runs and toilet papering the dean's office. Oh ya, and wooing T. with my feminine charms and working car.)
A few verses down in Isaiah 55 God promises, "You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands." Finding and giving joy is becoming the guiding principle in my life. Not resume-building.
Now if you'll excuse me I have pies to make. Maybe I'll even set one aside in the freezer for the next family gathering.
1 comment:
When I start feeling sorry for myself and my humble (by some standards) achievements, my friend always reminds me that there's lots of time for all those things when the kids are older. In fact just this weekend we hosted local folk musicians and she said her favorite artist only started singing/songwriting at 40. So if I've got a bunch of years, and I get the urge, I tell myself that I can always achieve more later. Right now, I too, want to enjoy my young children, bake pies, and dry my dishes by hand.
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