I am neither a Nun nor a Teacher,
and I have a mission.

I’ve been in the childcare game since the whole babysitting-for-volunteer-hours-for-Confirmation (Catholic equivalent of a Bat Mitzvah) 12 years ago.

Seven-ish of those years, I spent seriously considering being a nun. The three following years I volunteered as a Catechist (a Sunday school teacher who doesn’t just teach on Sundays because getting other kids ready for Confirmation takes everything you got). For the five minutes it took me to transition from one to the other I thought about being a teacher.

Being a nun wasn’t going to work because — to quote Alan Rickman in Love Actually — “lots of sex and babies”.

Being a teacher wasn’t going to work because the practicums alone were heartbreaking and exhausting and if I made that my life I would disappear into the wall like Wednesday Addams snooping on the Black Widow (Joan Cusack) in Addams Family Values.

My father is cool with my deciding against a life of celibacy. He wants as many grandkids as my sisters and I are willing and able to give him. Which is fantastic because it’s been years since his feet were properly tickled.

He’s not cool with my not being a teacher. Teaching is a “safe” career move and I’m great with kids. To him it seems like a no-brainer.

To me it seems like the fast-track to crying myself to sleep every night. Mostly because when I was studying to be a teacher I was crying myself to sleep most nights. Partly because just being a nanny has me crying myself to sleep some nights.

I love kids, but I hate nannying. I’ve been crying tears of relief that I’ll be working fewer hours soon (the kid is starting daycare part-time); tears of frustration as my mission in life takes a backseat or a sidetrack or whatever and I feel guilty about feeling frustrated about a job that actually allows me to take naps and avoid the slugger.

Right now, I’m working to live; but, I live to work. I have a mission, people.

I write fairy tales without the lame-isms (outdated social values) because we are storytelling creatures because that’s the best way to get information stuck in people’s heads while connecting with one another.

I write poetry about whatever the hell I want because we are passionate creatures because we have souls (or maybe share one soul, I’m a Catechist, but I’m still a bit fuzzy on what I believe there) and all the humanity we contain is nothing if our souls aren’t touched from time to time.

I want to help people change the stories we tell for better tomorrows for everyone. I want to help people to express themselves in whatever way makes the most sense for them.

I’m on a mission of words, people. I will push through to the end no matter how many diapers I have to change; no matter how many nights I cry myself to sleep because I did not publish something that morning; and, no matter how many people tell me The Blues Brothers are terrible role models.

I’m “on a mission from God”
and I don’t need a vocation
(sanctified, accredited, or otherwise official)
to know that’s the truth.