I think I’ve written about this before, and, since my brain often churns out the same words when I address the same topic, this may sound a lot like what I’ve already said. But maybe it’ll be different! Here goes.

I’m still in parent mode, financially supporting one kid until he graduates and has a job. But after that… what comes next?

Some options: keep doing what I’m doing with freelance/contract work but with more emphasis on writing books, go back to school and get a master’s in… something?, get a job with more hours, or chuck it all and go live in the woods where I make fairy crowns out of sticks and flowers and sell them to unsuspecting passersby.

Something tells me that Rory would encourage me to do the last one, where he’d join me, but then reality would set in and we’d miss our indoor plumbing and air conditioning and wi-fi.

I feel similar to how I felt as a young adult, not knowing what I wanted to be when I grew up. I know more than I did then, and I have more fall-back options than before, but now I’m coming at it from not having my whole life ahead of me and feeling the pressure to finally do more than the occasional thing that’s personally satisfying (that isn’t connected to parenthood).

What if I choose wrong? And I spend the next couple of decades doing something I feel is wasted?

I wish I could just change my perspective to “follow your bliss” or “do what you feel” and then not regret any choices. But I want to be able to look back at my life and see some larger accomplishments, even if just for myself, rather than a series of tiny “being the best me I can be at any moment” experiences. I want to be proud of more than just the effect I’ve had on others.

I’ve always been envious of people who have always known how they wanted to spend their life’s energies. But most of the things I enjoy doing don’t pay enough to justify spending my life at them. And external funding unattached to specific labor is a little slow in showing itself.

I do have a few ideas, which I hope to pull out and spend time with when our financial situation might be more flexible. But, until then, gotta keep going with the current path.

But! That hasn’t stopped me from pulling out a book I reviewed long ago called Roadmap: The Get-It-Together Guide for Figuring Out What To Do with Your Life by the people who do Roadtrip Nation. I never found the What Color is Your Parachute books to be all that helpful, but this one is good for people like me who prefer nontraditional paths. I’m hoping it can lend some perspective.

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