Job Angst

Let me preface this by saying that I love my job, I really do. I mean, obviously I love Lakeside - it's a beautiful place and super inspiring, and I love the ladies I work with - they're definitely my best friends in Madison, and some of my favorite people, period. What I'm talking about here is my other job.

I am a room leader at an After School for Homeless & At-Risk kids. It's only 18.5 hours a week - although it'll go up to 33 in the summer. It's a wonderful job. My two bosses are excellent women and I adore them, and the kids - the kids are amazing. It's been incredibly rewarding for me to work there for the past year and a half and it's been a true growth experience for me. Before I started there I had never worked with kids before, and I didn't really know what I was doing when I started. Now I am really confident, and I think the kids respect and like me and we have a lot of fun together. Like any social service job, sometimes something happens in the life of one of my kids and I die a little inside, but for the most part, I feel empowered and helpful when I'm there.

I've been feeling a little ambivalent recently though. One of my bosses just got a full time career track job for herself and she's leaving in a few weeks. Aside from being disappointed that I'm not going to see her as much anymore and will no longer benefit from her advice with the kids, I'm sort of jealous. As I say, I love my job, but it hasn't escaped my notice that I'm the oldest person who works there . . . by a lot. Everyone else is still in college.

To top it off, someone I went to undergrad with came into the yarn store last weekend. She has a design job with Land's End, and told me that someone else in our class is actually teaching the Fashion Illustration course now. I'm just sort of realizing that I have an effing design degree from a really good school, and most people, when I tell them what I do, think that I'm a glorified babysitter.

I know that's not true - I work way too hard at work to honestly think of myself as a babysitter, and I am aware that one of the problems with this country is that most people don't have access to real quality childcare. I know my job is important, and I flatter myself that some of these kids depend on me for a certain amount of constancy and support.

But tonight I was idly poking around job websites, (did I mention I only work 18.5 hours a week? + weekends?) and I found a job for an internship which I would be totally qualified for . . . except that I haven't added anything to my portfolio in over two years. A portfolio that when I submitted it for assessment got high honors at the time.

I miss design. I got a real kick out of sketching and swatching - if you saw my experimental knitting swatches that I did for Structural Enrichment! - and I miss that. I liked making color boards and doing texture studies. And knitting crazy ass shit, and doing embroidery.

I keep deciding that it's time to get going again - I have lots of pieces of patterns written up - but something has been standing in the way. I think I have just now realized what it is.