“Make your choice every day, and your choice chooses you.” It was improvised advice, given in response to a friend who asked how to be married. (It was two days before his wedding.)
I try not to say things I don’t believe, so when those words came out of my mouth, they got my attention. I spent the next few hours ruminating.
That was almost twenty years ago. I had just made two choices that have continued to choose me for twenty years.
- Scholar. I entered a doctoral program, requiring me to quit my job and move. My partner also quit his job to move with me.
- Mama. The day after we quit our jobs we found out I was pregnant. The timing felt horrible.
Queasy on a daily basis in the first trimester, I was aware of choosing each day to let this alien life draw from my strength and health to grow. I often said, “Thank goodness gestation is nine months instead of two weeks!” I needed time to adjust, time for my choices to choose me.
I didn’t really know how to be a scholar or a mama, yet I had to figure it out—day by day—in small choices that, over time, chose me.
I hid my pregnancy at first; no college student wants a visual reminder of potential consequences of their actions.
My second highest bill (after rent) was healthy food.
I usually chose time with my partner over time with my classmates.
I trusted three classmates and confided in them.
I kept my books within reach so I could pick them up when the baby slept.
I bought a sling and tried a few times to take my baby with me.
I trusted one classmate to wear the sling and the baby while I was in class.
I set a goal to be fully present to reading, writing, and discussing in the allotted time
AND fully present to the baby, my partner, and our home in the allotted time.
Somehow I learned to be both mama and scholar at the same time.
When I write that my choices chose me, what I mean is that they shaped me—forming habits (whether good, bad, or neutral) that manifest as part of my “natural” way of being in the world. Instead of a second list to correspond with the initial choices above, I offer these two disciplines, now durable over the twenty years in review:
I am often able to work in pockets of time.
I orient toward people yet limit my time with them.
Reflecting on this first of many anniversary celebrations, I am suddenly aware that the choices to become both mama and scholar, though born as twins, have lived largely parallel lives, moving with high degrees of independence from one another in different corners of the world. My life as a scholar is largely separate from my life as a mama, though my experiences of both identities are intertwined. This makes celebrating the anniversary complicated (as many are), yet not impossible.
I choose to celebrate!
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