The company of women

I used to think I didn't have much in common with other women. Even when I was a stay at home mom taking care of three small children I always felt at odds with other stay at home moms.

I liked what I was doing.  I really liked being a stay home mom. I didn't do it because I didn't have a choice, or wasn't qualified to do anything else. I did it because I felt what I was doing was one of the most important jobs in the world and I loved it. Of course it turned out that when I did work, it was teaching preschool, so small children were right up my alley.

Tonight was book club night and I found myself with five other women, four professors from four different universities, one CPA, and a railroad safety engineer. We just read Essentialism and in the process of discussing it, I discovered something important about myself.

I listened to these women talk about what they do and we discussed how we might change things after reading this book. I knew I had already changed things.

But what I really learned was I just can't do something I don't love for any length of time and I have been lucky to have lived most of my life loving my job, whether it was being a mom, a preschool teacher, a floral clerk, a library volunteer, or an editing assistant for Bestest. My office jobs were different. I never really liked them and I never was able to stick with one for more than two years.

I think that was what I didn't have in common with many of the women I have known. They got together to complain about their lives and jobs. If I had to work at a job I hated that much I would not have survived very long. The only thing in my life that really didn't work for me was my husband. We had nothing much in common after our children were born and sticking out that marriage as long as I did  was probably the biggest mistake I ever made -- but who knows.  Life is not linear.

For the first time in my life I found myself truly enjoying the company of a group of women.  Discussing our lives and the way the book might pertain to them was fascinating. I have to admit I felt humbled by these women. They all have a lot more education than I do and they all have jobs that make a lot more money than I ever did, but they love what they do and that was our common denominator.