The thing about me....

There was a time in my life where my greatest dream was to  marry a nice person and be a stay at home parent.

Seriously if you would have asked me when I was 18 what I wanted it would have included those things.  It might have also included some other stuff but that was around for me.

But, honestly, that was a life that I wanted because I didn't think I could do anything else.  I didn't even know if a person who wasn't obligated to could love me let alone want to be with me for an extended period of time...

The fantasy of being a homemaker did not come from something that I loved, it came from something I despised: my inadequacy, my stupidity, my internalized self hatred. 

After I went to college and realized
1. I am not dumb.
2. I am actually quite bright
3. The world isn't that scary
4. The world is endlessly fascinating
5. And I can do a great many things...

Then my dreams started expanding as well. I started to meet people and think, "could I do that job?" I imagined myself in new ways. I took a childhood idea of 'being a artist' and slowly started to cultivate art all around me.

I learned how to be vulnerable with people.  How to fall in love and how to have your heart broken. I learned all sorts of things...about others, about the world, and probably I learned the most about myself.

The idea, from when I was 18 to be a homemaker, looms large in my imagination right now.  Because, that is what I am.  I barely have a job. I am home with the kids. I make cupcakes for birthdays and do our grocery shopping.  I (don't) clean the house.  I garden and mow and do all sorts of household stuff. 

And even though the Rachel of right now. The Rachel of 2018 actually is enjoying this weird sabbatical from working life, the Rachel of 1998 haunts me.  The ghost of an inadequate fearful self loathing young adult lives large in my psyche. 

I am afraid of being an ignorant stay-at-home Mom NOT because I think other SAHMs are ignorant but because I was ignorant once when that was my primary dream for myself.

I am afraid of being an uninteresting stay-at home Mom NOT because I Think SAHMs are uninteresting, but because I was uninteresting when that was my dream for myself....

I used to be self loathing and boring and afraid and incapable of vulnerability and sarcastic (humor was more important than someones sense of self) and many other things...when I wanted to be a SAHM.

I think that this is a key part of my struggle with identity this year. 
I fear that to say, "this is what I want right now, and that I am happy right now."
 I might ALSO say I am all those things that were so hard when I was 18.