Earlier this week I was taking Annie for a walk in the stroller and I nearly rolled over an enormous moth that was sprawled on the sidewalk. Actually, technically I did roll over the moth- which I thought was just a giant brown leaf- but then I noticed the leaf had eyes and so I sidestepped it and lifted the stroller wheels to avoid flattening it.
The moth’s wings were mouse colored with a pair of pale yellow “eyes” rimmed with blue and black. He also had very on-trend “eyebrows” arched over its sad faux owl eyes.
I crouched down low on the sidewalk and saw his body was only a little smaller than the width of my pinky and covered in sandstone-hued fur. His antenna were like miniature ferns.
He was breathtaking. And so still. He seemed totally unfazed that I was getting all up in his mothy business.
He blended in so well with the sidewalk I worried that if I left him there the next person to wander by might step on him. And that would be a tragedy- because he was so beautiful.
I stood there for a minute or two considering the moth while Annie sat in the stroller babbling and flapping her arms in his general direction. I decided that I should relocate him. As a rule, I try not to interfere too much with the comings and goings of wildlife (unless said wildlife is in my house) because I believe wildlife should get to decide its own comings and goings. But in this case, I thought I should try to move the moth to a less busy thoroughfare.
So I sort of placed my index finger on the sidewalk and sort of wiggled it under the moth’s head, thinking he might inspect it and decide to climb on. He did. Though I think he had reservations. The moth’s movements were slow and feeble. He seemed a bit half-hearted about his whole existence and I thought that maybe there was something wrong with him.
I talked to him the whole time. Apologizing for the jostling and for being meddlesome. Telling him I didn’t want him to get stepped on or rolled over. reassuring him I’d find a nice tree nearby for him to hang on.
I walked half a block, one hand pushed the stroller and the other held this giant creature, which was only sort of grasping my finger and in danger of toppling to the ground again if the slightest breeze kicked underneath his wings.
We made it to a tree and I sort of jiggled him free of my finger and on to the tree. His wings fluttered and he seemed to struggle to hold on. But I thought he’d be safer there.
Except I was wrong.
Later that day, I walked by the same tree. The moth wasn’t gripping the bark, barely visible as I imagined he’d be. Protected from birds or other moth eating predators. He was in the grass. Laying on his side, his wings lifted in a V-shape. I looked closer and saw his half of his abdomen was missing. His legs were curled up. Only one of his delicate antenna remained.
He was dead.
He hadn’t been run over by a stroller or crunched by someone’s foot. It looked as if he’d been eaten by a bird or something.
My heart sunk. Because what if he had been just fine on the sidewalk? What if other pedestrians would’ve seen him as I did- sidestepped him, appreciated him and moved on. Maybe he would still be alive.
Maybe it was my decision to move him to the tree that killed him. If he had stayed where he was still and quiet, he wouldn’t have attracted the attention of whatever had eaten him. Instead, I moved him and he was all fluttery and out of sorts and something spotted him as a result and ate half of him, leaving him this husk of a body with shattered wings.
Maybe I’m being overdramatic. I mean, it’s just a moth after all, right?
I don’t know.
This whole mothcident has me thinking about the decisions we make in life. And about the outcomes of those decisions.
This summer, actually most of the past year, I’ve felt as if I was lost in a forest of decisions. A very dark, very overgrown forest. Kind of like the forest in the “Princess Bride” which wasn’t a forest at all I guess. So scratch that. For the past year I’ve felt like I was in the Fire Swamp of decisions.
Not a Fire Swamp of decisions, plural, really. But a Fire Swamp of Decision. That decision being- what was I going to do for work. And what made this one decision super extra swampy was all the imagined possible outcomes of that decision for my family and for me.
Just for some quick background for the two complete strangers who ended up here hoping for some cool moth trivia and instead ended up being treated to the to marshlands of my subconscious: eight years ago I left my full-time job as a newspaper features editor to stay at home with Lily who back then was a much less opinionated infant. To supplement our family income, I worked from home as a freelance writer- stealing time to work when Lily and then Jovie were napping or in bed for the night.
I wrote columns and articles for the newspaper I’d just left and wrote blog posts and other web content for various businesses and organizations. Over the years I’ve written about everything from office furniture and animal prosthetics to data analytics and medical billing. I’ve interviewed hundreds of experts on topics ranging from beauty to gourmet cooking to world travel to cloud computing to architecture. I also moonlighted as a farmhand and dabbled in website creation and social media management.
Then we moved to Virginia. My freelancing work slowed a bit, and so did my passion for it. When Jovie started full-day kindergarten two years ago, I decided it was time for me to get out of the house and dabble in something new and interesting. So I became a substitute teacher. And that was both challenging and exhausting, but also fun and invigorating. Rather then being stuck behind a computer screen for long hours of a day editing interviews with professionals on cloud computing and personal finance, I was interacting with real people (and/or short heathens depending on the day and the school) and finding opportunities to laugh and grow as a human being and maybe help a kid or two learn something (anything?!) in the course of a day.
Then Annie came into the picture. Putting a newborn in daycare so I could substitute teach wasn’t practical for many reasons (sanity! cost! tiny baby-ness!). So I took the year off- no subbing, no freelancing, just baby Annie and me. I promised Brad I would find a job when Annie turned 1. Living in Northern Virginia is not … inexpensive. Not working is not an option.
For the last year I’ve been agonizing over what my next move would be.
I half-heartedly looked for different types of jobs that I may or may not have been qualified for. It’s hard to feel qualified for much after spending eight years working from a kitchen table where cats occasionally lie on the keyboard and the dog barks at the mailman every afternoon and my short co-workers request chocolate milk and snacks in an endless stream of need and impatience.
I feel so far removed from the younger, driven, outspoken editor I was less than a decade ago. The one who attended meetings and published entire magazines.
I can write. I can edit. I can interview. I can build a super-basic website. I can make a serviceable dinner while holding a baby on one hip and I can construct an impressive fort out of sheets and couch cushions. I can pick a horse’s stall and milk a goat. I can convince an anxious eighth grader to calm down and focus on his chemistry lab.
My skillsets felt vague, obsolete and (let’s be honest) irrelevant to the postings for grown-up, 9-to-5 jobs I saw.
Not to mention, the idea of Brad and I both working the same types of jobs with rush-hour commutes tacked on either end of the day and all the kids needing some type of daycare and throwing in soccer practice and gymnastics lessons in the mix and then figuring out summers and snow days and school holidays … how do families do it? I mean seriously, I know families do it all the time- but re-reading this it strikes me as being kind of mean to ask them to do it. It’s so much.
I also browsed freelancing options with the enthusiasm of my 7-year-old picking up various socks and shoes she’s left lying around the house. I.E. zero enthusiasm (and lots of internal whining about how booooooring and unfair it was that I even had to pick up socks … err… browse freelancing jobs… at all.)
For years, freelancing gave me flexibility, the chance to strengthen my writing muscles and the opportunity to talk to a whole lot of interesting people with an eclectic mix skills and interests. Most importantly, it allowed me to be the primary caregiver to my girls.
But there was always way too much work or never enough work and I could never predict month to month how busy or not busy I’d be, so I was always anxious. Would I be up late every night scrambling to complete assignments? Or would we be tight on money that month? The writing gigs that paid really well were few and far between. There were many pieces I enjoyed writing, but mostly I was churning article after article for little compensation on tedious subjects I cared nothing about.
I noticed other freelancers were really good at developing a personal brand and marketing their skillsets in lucrative fashion. But let’s be honest, fashion- lucrative and otherwise- has never been my strong suit. Ditto for personal branding and self promotion- it all just makes me feel blushy and hivey and awkward.
I just felt like I was spinning my wheels all the time.
I thought I’d make writing my career. But in turning it into a job it killed the joy of it. I haven’t been freelancing in the last year and slowly, but surely I’ve been able to recover some of that playfulness I’d always found in putting words to page. For now, I’d like to keep writing just for me. To rediscover my creative spirit.
Working from home was so isolating. I missed having colleagues. Inside jokes. Adult conversations about things happening in the world outside of, I don’t know, how annoying “Baby Shark” is. Do Do Do Do Do Do.
I thought that maybe it’s time for something different.
But I didn’t know what that something different was. I didn’t know what to do. In bed at night I’d just lay there and pray to whoever or whatever was listening. “Help me figure out what to do.”
“Help me find a solution that is good for my family and good for me.”
I’d repeat this mantra throughout the day. While doing the dishes. While driving. While nursing Annie. While walking the dog.
I just wanted to find a way to help provide for my family that was going to be fulfilling, that involved some adult interaction, and that allowed me to pick up the kids from school at the end of the day. I wanted to minimize the number of hours Annie would spend in daycare.
I rolled all of this over in my head. Over and over and over. I felt like I was asking for too much. I know we can’t have it all. We can’t have all the things. We can only do our best with what we have in front of us.
On the windowsill in front of the kitchen sink there’s this little quote that I found attached to a tea bag: “Let things come to you.”
As in, stop the frantic, panicked searching. Remember things work out.
Then one day it came to me. I could work at a school again. Not as a sub or as a teacher because I’m not certified or anything, but in an office or as an aide or something.
The pay wouldn’t be great- especially when I factored in daycare for Annie. But my hours could match up with the older girls more or less and We’d all still have afternoons together. And holidays and summer break.
I wouldn’t be stuck behind a computer for long hours. And I’d be around adult humans again. I’d get to work with kids. Maybe figure out if switching to a career in education was a good move for me.
I ran the idea by a friend who works at a school. And by Brad.
“Am I crazy for considering this based on how much it pays and how much daycare costs?”
They didn’t think so. So I applied to a few schools as an instructional assistant.
And then I accepted a job as an instructional assistant. In middle school. Again.
Which I think many people would be surprised to learn, I’m pretty excited about.
I start next week.
But what about that Fire Swamp you mentioned? You can’t just make a “Princess Bride” reference and then never elaborate! Can you?
No, you can’t.
Like I said, I spent the entire year since Annie was born in this mental Fire Swamp sort of hacking my way through this whole job conundrum. And even now, even with a plan in place, I still feel like I’m in this middle of this suffocating, muggy tangle of brush.
There’s the quicksands of self doubt. Am I selling myself short? should I have tried harder to find a fancier, ladder-climbing job related to journalism (“Jokes on you,” say all the former journalists working in PR and marketing whose ladders have been chopped up and burned because everyone stopped reading local newspapers. Seriously though. Read your local newspaper. It’s not fake news and the people there aren’t monsters. Just mildly disheveled and often socially awkward individuals who love telling stories and who love their communities and who want to keep local officials honest.)
Where were we?
Self doubt. What am I even doing with my life? Seriously. What road am I on right now?
Then there’s the fire geysers of panic.
HOLY SHIT THIS WAS A BAD IDEA! WHAT IF I HATE SCHOOL?!!!! WHAT IF THEY HATE ME?!!!! WHAT IF MY KIDS ARE MISERABLE? WHAT IF WE DROWN IN DEBT AND DESPAIR AND IT’S ALL MY FAULT?!!!!!!! WHAT IF I AM THE ANCHOR THAT WILL SLOWLY DRAG MY BEAUTIFUL FAMILY DOWN INTO THE GREAT ABYSS WHERE WILL BE NIBBLED ON BY CRABS AND CREEPY LOOKING FISH WITH LIGHT BULB PROBES!!!!! WHAT AM I EVEN DOING IN THIS LIFE?!!!
And worst of all are the, ROUSes- or rather GOUSes – Guilt of Unusual Size.
I need to address this guilt. This guilt is massive. Because I’m choosing to leave Annie in the care of someone else. The older girls had all of me for eight years and Annie will have less of me. And that feels uncomfortable and unfair. To her. To me. And even though I found someone who is highly recommended and who is so sweet and warm and professional and who I know will love Annie (because who wouldn’t love Annie?) and will be nurturing toward her, it feels so unforgivable. So awful. I can’t even look the GOUS in the eye. I’ll probably be blinded or turn into stone.
Maybe one day I’ll be brave enough. Maybe after I see that Annie is OK and Lily and Jovie are OK. And I’m OK. And it’s all going to be OK. But I can’t just yet. Not today.
I don’t know any other way out of the Fire Swamp of Decision than to make a decision. So I made one.
I looked at all the factors- hours, pay, time away from the kids, time with the kids, job satisfaction, meeting people, potential for new career adventures, opportunities to brush up on my slang and increase my use of Urban Dictionary- I looked at all the things and landed on this choice.
And I just have to trust that for now it was the right one. And if its not, that I’m able to leap quickly to one side before it burns me or that I’m good with a sword or have some sort of vine handy to pull myself out of it.
Maybe it is the right one and I’ll end up with four white ponies on which Brad, the girls, Andre the Giant and I can gallop away toward the sunset on.
What was that? Too much “Princess Bride”? You say. Maybe it’s time to move on?
Where were we? Oh, right. Remember that giant moth.
The one I went on and on about earlier.
I was curious about what type of moth it was- so I did some research. I found it was a polyphemus moth. In reading about it I learned that after metamorphosing into an adult, it lives for less than a week.
I got to thinking about the moth I’d found. And how my decisions might have affected him.
Like, how I could’ve made the decision to leave him on the sidewalk and he could’ve gotten stepped on and died. Or, maybe he would’ve been just fine. Maybe he would’ve lived longer. Instead, I moved him to the tree thinking his chances of survival would improve there. I was wrong.
I keep thinking my decision is what killed him.
But as it turns out, whether I had interfered or not, he wasn’t destined to be in this world for in that magnificent form for more than a few days.
When I found him on the sidewalk, he was subdued. There was no frantic wing flapping. No vitality. No attempts to escape from me. Just surrender.
Regardless of whether he became another creature’s meal- I think I was witnessing his last moments here.
As it turns out, maybe I wasn’t the undertaker. The hapless master of this moth’s universe. The thing that sealed his fate. It could be my choices didn’t make all that much of a difference in how his life would ultimately turn out.
I’ve been thinking about this as I traverse my own Fire Swamp. How as a parent and as a mother in particular I might overemphasize my role in all negative outcomes for my children. You know, all their bumps and bruises, their bad behavior, their tantrums, their moments of insensitivity, their anxieties, their sloppiness, their entitlement, their pickiness about food, their unhappiness, their poor handwriting, their inflexibility, their clumsiness, their ineptness- all their failings- I attribute to some weakness on my own part. Something I did do or didn’t do. Something I did too much of or didn’t do enough of. One quality or another they must have inherited from me. The pea I inadvertently placed under the mattress when they were infants that has ruined them for all time.
While I’m all too willing to lay claim to their less desirable character traits, I’m dismissive of any suggestion that I might have had something to do with all the things that make them good people. That, I insist, is who they are. A part of their soul or else gifted to them by the generous example of friends and teachers and other relatives.
The truth is, it’s all a mix, right? A mix of nature and nurture. A mix of my choices and their choices and external circumstance. Just as it was for this moth I found.
The butterfly effect says that a small action- the flapping of a butterfly wing- can potentially have a large effect on something in the future. A small impact now can have a big impact later. I believe in that. But I also believe in the moth effect. That a person moves a moth off the sidewalk and that it has absolutely no effect on whether the moth suffered an early death. A decision made today doesn’t necessarily result in catastrophe in the future.
My decision to work outside of the home might not result in the fiery demise of my family’s health and happiness.
Or maybe it will. Who’s to say?
All I know for sure is that the only way out of the Fire Swamp is to walk through the Fire Swamp.
The rest I’ll just let come to me.
