The Universe and Me.

I sit here, in a QUIET house.

Too quiet.

My children-- all three of them-- are in school.

And I? Am not.

This has got to be the toughest "fall" I have ever experienced... even more so than the one when my first wee girl toddled off to her first morning of kindergarten, leaving my outstretched arms wide-empty.

Child Number One began high school last week. (I KNOW. Gaaaa.)

Child Number Two began grade four this morning.

And my baby? My Wee One? Is in grade one. That's a full day of school, people.

Here I sit. A mother with time on her hands; a teacher with no job, and no one to teach.

Woe is me?

Well, hardly, if you really want the honest truth. My husband found a job last spring, at long last, and so there is a steady (enough) paycheque coming in. We have managed to keep our house, and what snippets are left of my sanity. Since "coming home" last spring, after the ten month slog of Furthering My Education, I have enthusiastically engrossed myself in cleaning, reorganizing and generally improving our living arrangements.

That is luxury. I know it. And I am thankful for it.

Yet, perhaps foolishly, my brain yearns for more. I need work-- a classroom of my own, a LIFE of my own, to help keep me on this slow, yet steady upward path towards self-awareness and validation. I know that getting a job would mean another total family upheaval, and a mad scramble to find another Mary Poppins to step in and help me keep all the aspects of life that I constantly juggle up in the air. It would be hard as hell. And once again, time would speed up and run like sand through my fingers. My children would grow another year, almost without me.

Is that what I really want?

Yes, and no.

My girlies need me right now, to help them make these huge life transitions into their new routines. I was essentially absent for a LONG time last year. Now that I am back, their need for me is palpable during every second I spend with them, and resonates in my heart even when they are not physically with me. Right now, I am in the right place at the right time.

The unanswered questions remain, however: Where the universe will propel me next? And how? Why? Most importantly... when it does... will I choose "right"?