My quarter-life crisis

My sister is due to give birth in the next few weeks. This will be the first baby in our family. I am more excited than I've been in a long time and cannot wait to hold and love on this baby. I'll be the first to admit that I am living vicariously through her. Or am I?

These days I'm not so sure that I want children. Besides missing a very crucial element in the conception process (the man!) I'm just not sure that motherhood is for me. Back in my twenties I was positive that I was meant to be a mother. I figured I'd be married and have a few popped out by the time I hit thirty. Well, turns out that I just THOUGHT that was what I wanted.

By day I am a teacher. I guess I should specify that during days in the school year I am a teacher. Once the bell rings and I'm on my way home, I no longer consider myself a teacher. I often feel that I am a poser. I pretend that I'm a teacher. Something about it just doesn't feel right. Don't get me wrong, I love the kids- or most of them anyway. They make me laugh. It's so fun to find out what will come out of their mouths next. But the students of today are far different than the type of student I was.

I was so shy. Never wanted to draw any attention to myself. I made sure to keep just under the radar wherever I went. Average. I had what may have been the worst case of stage fright ever. I think I still do. I cannot stand to be in front of a room full of adults and have to talk. It is absolutely the worst feeling I've ever experienced. I once stood still through an entire baton routine while twenty other little girls danced around me on stage. The only move I made was when my row had to rotate to the back of the stage while the other moved forward. I knew the routine by heart. I had been practicing for months. But nobody told me that on that night, when the curtain opened, there would be five hundred people staring at me. It was a bit of a shocker.

I know that I have the nurturing instincts necessary for motherhood. I love to help people and make them feel better. I help anyone I can without having to be asked. I am patient, as evidenced in my job with special needs students. But could I deal with someone needing something from me twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week? Not so sure.

Everyone tells me that it would be different if I had kids of my own. Would it really? I try to think of all of my friends that have children. Am I jealous of them? Would I want their lives? Would I want their children? I don't think so. It's not that I don't like them. I adore my friends' kids. I guess the upside of this is that I am happy with my own life. If you wouldn't trade your own- it's a good sign, right?

Right now I am still trying to figure out what's next in my life. I have a job, I have a house, I will have a niece soon, but I don't feel complete. I feel like I am missing a lot. My job is great and I can get up and go to work every year and do a good job, but do I love it? No. I fear becoming someone who can be pegged as a teacher while standing in a crowd. I have sworn to never wear a sweater that has letters or numbers sewn on. I refuse to wear denim jumpers. I absolutely will not allow my garage to house my "teacher stuff" during the summers. And when I go to teacher workshops.... I cannot describe how annoyed I get. Just the other day while in a seminar I could feel my blood pressure rising. These women either ask redundant and unnecessary questions, or they turn the workshop into a seven hour bitch-fest about red-tape and uninvolved parents. I want to scream DEAL WITH IT at the top of my lungs. I walked out of my last seminar after two hours. I just couldn't take it anymore.

Has teaching turned me off of having my own children? Possibly. It's scary out there. Some of these kids are unbelievable. And although most kids are a reflection of their parents, there are plenty who come from nowhere. I've met some of the nicest moms out there, but their children are absolute brats. I'm talking future convicts here. And I find myself thinking, if this nice woman can have a kid like that, then what's in the cards for me?

Maybe fear is my deterrent. It's gotta be. I am afraid of having children who misbehave so much that I will be the talked-about mother among the teachers at the local school. Every year they might fight over who would have to deal with my kid for an entire year. It happens people! Bad kids' names are like the latest fad- everyone knows about them.

I just don't know. Will I be a mother one day? Maybe. Will I find a career that I love? Hopefully. Will I end up with someone to spend the rest of my life with? Most likely. Will I be over my quarter-life crisis soon? I pray to energy that I am.