She’s a Writer, a Speaker, a Red Wine & Coffee Drinker

She’s me. I’m going through my mid-life crisis early because I  have always been a bit of an over-achiever. I figure why wait if I can already identify some of my angst, right? My oldest child is getting ready to #flymysweet and head off to New York, not to follow her bliss but to study the one thing that makes studying everything else tolerable. There are so many mixed emotions, and I’ll eventually sort through them bit by bit to write about them, but the mess of emotions is why I’m writing this post. I’m not leaving my family, buying a new car, getting a boob job, piercing my fill-in-the-blank, or taking up a new hobby. (I may, however, get my eyebrows tattooed.) I am trying to carve out some space, time, silence, planned activity and nothing – a luxury, I know. Some call it a sabbatical. Honestly it’s my mid-life crisis. Seventeen years in ministry as a wife, a mom, and then a writer and speaker, always a coffee drinker and then finally a palate that could appreciate being a wine drinker, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. Please tell me you can relate. Please tell me that there have been days when you looked at your schedule, your desk, your kitchen, your gym, your pile of laundry, your spouse, your children, your church, your boss, your inbox, your text messages, your journal, your car keys, your reflection in the mirror after spending the morning working from home in your pajamas and robe and thought, “What the hell am I doing?” That’s where I am. There are no doubts about my skills, talents, gifts, passions, pet peeves, and weaknesses, but there is a restlessness I have not attended to. And I’m actually afraid to ask God what I’m supposed to do about all of this because I actually believe if I ask God He is going to answer and sometimes I don’t like the answers. I don’t like to be that honest because you may read my funny, insightful, vulnerable posts, but you haven’t heard my prayers. Prayers are honest, raw, ugly, broken, desperate, and hopeful. We don’t always get what we want, which is what I naively and incorrectly interpreted a Christian life to be. Ask and you shall receive. Knock and the door will be open. When life closes a door, God opens a window or something like that. Sure. Ask and you might receive an “Oh, no.” and the door might open but not for you. And that window is “open” because someone threw a rock through it so going through means getting cut. See. I’m stuck. But over dinner and drinks to celebrate 21 years of marriage, my husband asked me if I could do anything what would I do. It was the closest thing to a prayer about myself since this whole launching a kid to college and ushering my older son into high school sent me to my knees about them and my parenting. This was about dreaming, not for them but for myself. There is an inherent danger in doing that because there are some cultural norms not often discussed in polite company. My unscientific research has shown that men can get away with more self-promotion than women, and even men and women may accept self-promotion more in men than in women. And Asian Americans by unspoken rule do not believe in self-promotion, unless you are a man, which means you can get away with it more. It’s not always true, but it is more often than not the case. An elder at another church once reprimanded me for talking too much about myself when talking about my work and ministry. Huh? And as we approach Mother’s Day let us not forget that we thank our mothers because of their sacrifice and unselfishness, which sometimes flies in the face of having aspirations, goals, and interests that are not some how connected to the lives we birthed, adopted, fostered, and mentored. I don’t buy greeting cards, but I’m going to guess that a lot of cards thank moms for what they did for us. Which is why I want to encourage my mom friends and women friends, my sisters, and my brothers to name three things about yourself and dream a little. These words don’t define you, limit you, label you, etc. It’s just a start. And if you’re game, pray those ugly, honest, hopeful prayers to God to guide your way. Ask your community to confirm, affirm, redirect. Just three things. She’s a writer, a speaker, a coffee drinker. That’s me. It’s not all of me, but it’s start. Who are you?

A dear friend gave this to me just because it was perfect in so many ways. It's good to have friends who know you, can keep things real, keep you humble and honest, and make you laugh.

A dear friend gave this to me just because it was perfect in so many ways. It’s good to have friends who know you, can keep things real, keep you humble and honest, and make you laugh.

 

How to Train a Kid & Thoughts After Career Day

This is a Smith-Corona portable manual typewriter. I remember using one of these when I was growing up. Clack, clack, clack. Ding.

This is a Smith-Corona portable manual typewriter. I remember using one of these when I was growing up. Clack, clack, clack. Ding.

Less than half of the 48 elementary school kids who sat in on my “writer/blogger” Career Day session recognized the photo of a manual typewriter, the writing tool I used in 1988 for “Basic Writing” – Medill School of Journalism’s freshman weed-out course for journalism majors.

A few of them had Instagram accounts. Many of them knew they were too young to be on Facebook, but a few of them had been promised an account for future birthdays. They all recognized my iPad and talked about typing on laptops.

Yet all of them were still thinking of writers in the more traditional sense – authors of books or writers of magazine or newspaper articles. Very few of them were thinking about writers in terms of web content, scripts for TV & movies, song lyrics, etc. The idea of writing a book or writing for a newspaper, both of which I have done, did not easily translate into the 21st century despite having been born into a fast-moving tech world.

My father had me keep a journal when I was young. I read the first entry from my yellow notebook to each Career Day group – Oct 13, 1978. It was journaling in the pre-blog decades – pencil and paper. Almost 30 years later, I’m still journaling – on paper and onto the internet.

I’m a parent now, and I am wondering what habits, skills, and values I am instilling and emphasizing in our day-to-day chaos that will serve my children well in the decades to come. It’s not just about jobs but about passions and the sweet spot when passions and vocation collide. My parents are immigrants, and I am the product of that pragmatism. Anderson Cooper could chase after his bliss. My job was to succeed. My parents didn’t leave a developing country on the verge of martial law so that I could follow my bliss. Bliss was a vocabulary word. My future depended on education and a job. The goal was to develop skills whether or not they were my gifts.

But life as the adult child of immigrants in this century continues to be that of navigating shifting sand. The kids at Career Day will most likely never know what a pension is, and who knows what will happen to Social Security. Kids today have parents who in earlier years may have expected companies and employees to live out loyalty in terms of job security instead of a punch card or plastic key fob for points. The job market, and the idea of a career continues to develop and change. It used to be who you knew. Now we add a touch of LinkedIn and Career.com. I thought I was ready, but I’m barely ready myself. I feel behind, and if I’m behind where are my kids?

So it got me thinking about Career Day and how the format has remained the same, but the careers and the idea of presenting options may have to change with the times as well as how we have conversations at dinner about school, grades, favorite subjects and “what do you want to do when you grow up?”.

That last question is a tough one because sometimes I feel like I’m still figuring that one out.