The Cake is a Lie

Over Christmas (yes, 3 months ago), I had the opportunity to talk to my oldest friend - oldest in the sense that she and I have been friends since 6th grade (over 20 years), not in the sense that she is old. She had her first baby last September - a very darling girl, whom I hope to see before she graduates from high school. Anyway, my friend and I were both raised in a very feminist environment: You can have it all - job, family, whatever. But as we've both struggled through our professional lives and walked the precarious work-home tight rope, we've realized something:

The cake is a lie.

Despite how far women have come, let's face it: An assertive woman is often not rewarded in the work place. Heck, I'm not so sure men are either (although they have it easier in my experience). Growing up, I was told that if I worked hard, was conscientious, dedicated, and went above the call of duty I'd be rewarded.

Bull.

If the past couple years have taught me anything, they've taught me that the opposite is true. I gave my employer, whom I have worked for since 1998 (almost 12 years) everything I have between the hours of 8:30 and 5:00 - and sometimes beyond. There was a time that dedication mattered: I was one of 3 employees to receive a very generous cash award when our CEO sold his controlling share interest to a private investment firm.

Now, I'm not so sure.

Lately, I find myself repeatedly slapped - both for going beyond my zone into the "white space," and for not doing so. I can't do anything right. I'm too assertive, I'm not assertive enough. I have let basic responsibilities lapse - despite the fact that a year ago I repeatedly told my boss that I was overtaxed and no longer had the capacity to do all these things. I was letting the "small stuff" slide just to keep the engine running. She was okay with that - right up to my annual review, and then bam! Uh...

The past year, and the past 3-6 months in particular have made me realize something: This is a job. It is not my passion. It's a decent employer, a good wage, awesome benefits and I work with some fantastic people. But it's just a job. A recent email from my alma mater asked me to share "how I was living my passion."

Well, it's not in the workplace.

An email from a guy I've never met in real life, as to whether he was too young for a mid-life crisis, kept me thinking. What is my passion? What is the thing I would love to do - that would really make me excited? And I thought of two things: writing and teaching.

I love to write (the infrequency of this blog notwithstanding). I was good at it in college. I had fun. But I'm not sure at the age of 37 (close enough) I want to do the "cub reporter" bit. And I don't want the pressure of a daily newspaper deadline. I want to be creative, I want to write things that people want to read because it makes them think, maybe the occasional movie or restaurant review.

Teaching, well, that's what I trained to do, way back when. I was going to be a high-school English teacher. But I couldn't get a job in the mid-90s and the loans needed to be paid. Now, I realize I don't want to teach some snot-nosed teenager who is only in class because the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania tells him he needs to be there. Nor do I want to teach some snot-nosed young adult who is only in class to meet an elective requirement of his college. I want to teach people who want to learn - who are interested in what I have to tell them. I adore explaining things to my kids. I had a wonderful evening recently explaining WWII and the rise of the Soviet Union to my kids at the dinner table, using condiment bottles as props. I've explained the solar system using a globe, a tennis ball, and a can of Coke. Why did I enjoy it? Because they wanted to learn, they hung on my every word. I could almost see their little sponge-like minds soaking it all up, and it was fabulous. Literature, theology, natural science, it matters not what I teach - I just like to teach. I'm not an expert on all these things (well, I do have both a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Literature), but I know a lot, and what I don't know I can learn right along with my students.

The problem is, I have no idea how to go about acting on these desires. Because I do have kids, a mortgage, car payments, private school tuition, dance, tae-kwon-do, and thus the need for a regular income with benefits. So I teach my kids and putter on this blog (hoping that someone reads it and likes it). But oh, to find a way to make real money off of that would be so liberating.

In the meantime, I think am living my passion. It's at home. It's in the faces of a boy and a girl who think I'm the cat's pajamas - and a husband who thinks I'm pretty cool too. My passion is not some soul-sucking corporate job. I have the soul-sucking corporate job to pay for my passion - because while love may make the world go around, money sure is more convenient for the purposes of paying the bills.

I've been watching past seasons of "House, M.D." courtesy of a co-worker, and one recent episode hit me. In that episode, a young woman who is the assistant of a high-powered female right attorney gets ill, and she has a conversation with House's young female doctor assistant, 13. And the exchange goes something like this:

13: But that's feminism. You can have anything you want.

Patient: Just wanting it doesn't mean I can have it. I can aspire to anything, but I can't necessarily have it.

Yeah. I can have it all. To paraphrase a former president, it depends on what your definition of "all" is.