Plans

I interviewed for a job yesterday.  Its a job that pays too little and requires too much.  Just what I'm used to.  I applied because I need something to do.  My life is so unstructured.  I don't get out of bed until 9:00, creeping closer to 10:00 each day.  I stay up late doing who knows what.  I need some purpose, so I'm looking for a job.  Not a career, just a job.

I haven't interviewed for a job in 4 years, so I was a little rusty.  I didn't really prepare for the standard interview questions.  I have been so happily immersed it the world of motherhood that I really had to dig deep to remember my work life before Jonah.  I find it funny that the job of motherhood is inappropriate to reference in professional interviews.  When they asked me "Tell me about a difficult work experience and how you resolved it?" I wanted to tell them about trying to teach Jonah to sleep through the night.  I wanted to tell them about Jonah's cleft palate surgery, how I held him and tried to stay calm when he was in so much pain. Both experiences are so much harder than anything I've ever dealt with at work.

"What adjectives would you use to describe yourself?"  I wanted to say incredibly strong, hopeful, devastated, confused.  I think I said adaptable, passionate, creative. 

Here is the question that really got me.  "What are your plans for the next two years, what are your goals for the future?"  This question almost made me laugh. I have always been goal oriented. I like to have a plan.  I like to know where I'm headed and that I'm achieving something.  I like to put things on my resume.  Four years ago I would have had a great answer for that question.  Instead I said,

I have spent a lot of my life achieving goals, and working on plans.  In the last year of my life I have had all my plans turned upside down.  I wish I could tell you where I'm going to be and what I will be doing in two years.  I wish I could plan that far in advance, but I can't.  All I can tell you is that I want to be involved in something important, and I will do my best at whatever job I am given. 

I don't know if they liked that answer.  It felt honest, although not the whole truth.  I do have a plan.  I want to be a mom again.  I have come to realize that pregnancy is not always as easy and effortless as so many teenagers make it look.  It may be months, or years, or eternities.  I cannot plan my life.  I can hope.  I can wait.  I can try.  I can pray.  I will do all those things and try to appreciate the days I am given, the opportunities that present themselves and the love that comes my way.  And maybe someday I will get a job.

If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.  Woody Allen