beginning with the beginning: a lesson in the power of potential

So here I am. Married. Mother of one 16-month-old daughter. I have a Bachelors degree (double major: math/philosophy) from a prestigious New England small liberal arts college. I have a Masters degree from a large midwestern university, in teaching English as a second language. I don't teach ESL though. I work as a technical editor for a wonderful environmental consulting firm here in Seattle.

But I want more. I had a baby. Then I went back to work after a 3-month maternity leave. And going back to work, leaving the little one behind, I was hit right in the gut with the reality that I didn't love my job.

And that to be able to leave my little girl behind every day, I really did need to find a job I love. Or at least where I feel like the following two things are happening:

• I'm living up to my potential (I have a feeling I will be devoting a fair amount of space on this blog attempting to define exactly what this means and why it's so gosh darn important)
• I'm having a meaningful and positive effect on the world, in as direct a way as possible

I'll talk more about those two points for sure in future posts, but let's start there. Now, I have a pretty great work situation right now. I work 4 days per week and they are cool with that. I get paid for the overtime I put in (time and a half is all that and a bag of chips, seriously). They totally get that home life is important and that I can't do my job if things aren't taken care of at home. I love the people I get to work with. Sometimes, the stuff I do is interesting. I'm not always working a bazillion hours (though it has felt like it the past few months). And so on. There are some really good perks to where I work.

But if I wake up in 3, no even 2, years and I am still sitting at the same desk, doing the same tasks, I will probably have to stick a fork in my eyeballs. My life will suck that much.

And knowing that, I know I have to do something.

So here's the plan: I'm going to switch careers. In a somewhat drastic way. I'm going to bite the bullet and go back to school. In my mid-30s. The career that I have been doing a little dance around for years, and that really all my previous education and experience, and loves and interests point to is one in speech pathology.

Here's the roadmap I've created for myself:

Winter/Spring 2010 = shadow/interview practicing speech pathologists in both the medical and educational fields
Summer 2010 = take a biology course at a community college; get pregnant with Numero Dos
Fall 2010 = apply for post-bac program; take another course?
Winter 2011 = cross fingers that I get in to post-bac program! apply for financial aid
Spring 2011 = Numero Dos (hopefully) arrives to bring chaos to our household
Summer 2011 = start post-bac program; maybe work flex/freelance doing technical editing for my current company, if possible, on the side

Here's a dirty little secret: this plan scares the BEJEEZUS out of me.

But don't they (who are they anyway and what do they really know?) always say that if your plan/dream/goal/whatever doesn't scare you, then you aren't thinking big enough?

So yeah. That's me. I'll be using this blog to document this humungous change in my career, and probably all the other changes in me and life as I know it that go along with it.

Come along on the ride, won't you?

There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse! As I have often found in travelling in a stagecoach, that it is often a comfort to shift one's position, and be bruised in a new place. ~Washington Irving

Change is coming. You can bet your ass it is. And this is where I plan to document it.