Sunday, August 29, 2010

What do I do now?

So I'm confronted (in a nice way) with a sort of request that I figure out what the hell I want to do next.

And I don't really know.

Over the course of my life so far, I've wanted to be a lot of things, some more practical than others. Sign language interpreter, opera singer, a bunch of things. Lately, since my job is partly a webmaster position, I've thought about being not a website designer but a content provider, a writer for sites, something like that. But it has been brought home to me that I really don't KNOW anything. I'm a decent writer and high-information political junkie with a little experience with CSS and HTML but nothing huge. I do plan to take a course in HTML in the next year, but that doesn't seem like a dream, you know?

I would like to write for maybe a radio station website (I love radio) or a political campaign or political website (Talking Points Memo internship sounds really great right now; unfortunately it would involve getting an internship at my advanced years and moving my family to DC with no visible means of support). There are certainly areas I am excited about and would like to write about. But, again, I don't have a PoliSci degree or anything, I'm just a self-taught occasional political blogger that no one reads.


And yet I feel as though this might be my chance to choose something new to do, something that would keep me interested and passionate until the end of my working life. Which isn't that far away, realistically speaking. Relatively.

So is now the time to go back to school? To look for an internship or training program? To throw everything up in the air (again) and see where it falls? The last time we did that it was for my husband to come out to L.A., which has had its ups and downs, but the kids are incredible and we are at least functional at this point.

In my heart of hearts, I would like to be able to stop struggling so hard and spend a few years becoming a Master Spinner, write a book and teach spinning and spin forever and ever. Yeah. I know. But that is because I have always wanted to stop doing anything tedious and just do interesting fun things. I'm basically lazy, after all.

Perhaps it's time to decide what I DON'T want to do and at least eliminate some options. I do NOT want to be a lawyer. I do NOT want to go back to secretarial work unless it's a dire emergency. I do NOT want to choose what I'm doing just to make money and not to feed my soul. Which argues for staying with what I do now, as although it is not perfect, does offer a path to some fulfillment most of the time. I do NOT want to go into the ministry (ha!).

I think I need to think some more...