Outlier

OUTLIER

About a year ago, my husband and I adopted our son, Luis.

Luis, the amazing

As a parent, I am clearly biased in that I think my son is extraordinarily clever, kind, witty and intelligent. I think he's handsome and funny and just about the most amazing 14-year-old on the planet.

I mean, come on. 

Which is not to say that Luis is perfect. As I'm writing this blog, he is talking back to me about doing his homework, so I've had to stop writing and lay down the law and enforce consequences. Not my favorite things to do but it has to be done.

Through the good times and the moody-hormonal-teenage-rebellion times, I love being a parent. 

But at 31, I am most definitely a statistical outlier with a son in 8th grade. 

Most parents of the teens we know are in their 40's. Which is not to say I don't get along with them. My husband is, after all, currently 48. 

We make a neat little set, my family. I am exactly 17 years older than my son and 17 years younger than my husband. 

 

 Our choice to adopt a teenager is EXACTLY the right choice for my family, for so many reasons. We were not meant to rear and raise an infant. Luis completes our family in just the right way. 

1, 2, 3. All in a row.

One of the unforeseen results of our path to parenthood, however, is that I have no peers to go through this with. More specifically, I have no one roughly my age who adopted a child as a teenager. (I do have friends roughly my husband's age who gave birth to or adopted children as babies. And I am eternally grateful on their guidance and support.)

I'm acutely aware that most women my age are having babies. My feeling on that? I LOVE being Auntie Jessy. Love it. Lots of snuggles with amazing babies (see below) and then the pleasure of handing them right back over when they get too stinky or too loud. 

Adorable Baby Elijah 

(Cute even when he's stinky or loud)

Raising an infant (and subsequent toddler, preschooler, etc.) is an all-consuming life-altering thing that occupies the majority of adult energy and attention for many years.

When I think about my friends and peers raising their infants, toddlers and preschoolers, I feel

1. Admiration for all the work they are doing.
2. Gratitude that I knew the path that was right for me (and didn't give in to the overwhelming tide of peer pressure to have a baby). 
3. Lonely.

My friends are in the trenches with other parents of newborns and little ones. And I am in a trench with my husband beside me (neither of us would make it out alive without the other). However, when he looks around, he can easily find other peers his age and gender dealing with similar parenting issues.

But along with loneliness, I also feel an enormous sense of potential and freedom.

In our current society, the burden of child care is disproportionately shouldered by women. Without paid maternity leave or easy access to inexpensive child care, it is typically the woman whose career is put on hold or ended by producing another human.

I am exempt from this. Although I took fewer courses when the adoption was taking place, I worked and went to school consistently through my path to parenthood.

I have five years until Luis goes off to college.

Five.

Friends who are having babies now will be parents of kindergarteners when I have an empty nest.

 

Kindergarten Cop 

Vs. 

80's Sitcom "Empty Nest"

I want to savor every moment of parenthood while Luis is at home. And I look forward to discovering how to be the parent a college student and then transitioning to being the parent of an adult. 

And I want to dream about what I could do with all that extra time when he moves on to the next phases of his life.

If in 5 or so years, I'm not consumed with the day-to-day joys/struggles of parenting, I want to pour my energy into something that can make a difference, make a change, for the better.

So let's see where the next five years of my career take me.

First step? Becoming Dr. Jessy. 

Out of My Head

The next nine months are going to be nuts.

I'm talking To-Do Lists that go on for pages and juggling multiple projects and timelines.

The path to graduation is paved in pink marker

It's organizational heaven.

I love lists and charts and making plans. They provide me with the illusion of control over my life. Once I get an idea "out of my head" and onto paper, it no longer has the power to cause me anxiety.

 

To do lists for projects and classes 

I worry that while I'm so busy, I won't have time for the things that are essential in my life:

• Taking care of myself. I can't accomplish my goals if I get sick from lack of sleep. Stress relieving practices will get me through all this and allow me to be a patient and kind human. This includes doing art, spending time in silence and having the occasional "girls day" with my people. 
• Spending time with my boys. I love my husband and son. And I spending quality time with them is an essential to who I am. Besides, I need to defend my title as house champion of various board and video games. 
• Spending time with my clan. I don't want friends and family to forget my name while I finish school. "What's your name again?" is not a phrase I want to hear from my parents on Thanksgiving. 

In order to accomplish this, I've devised MAGICAL LISTS to help me prioritize my time. 

Since cooking is my contribution to our household chores, I am making a menu for the next SIX MONTHS of dinners and lunches. I'm even including grocery lists and instructions for my sous chefs (husband and son). It's going to be epic.

Beef! It's what's for dinner in 3 weeks.

Also, worrying about what to wear to work and school is NOT something I want to waist time on in the coming months. I've already discussed how I feel about time spent worrying over clothing options in women vs. men. 

So I'm making a clothes calendar.

Putting together a clothes calendar

I've started putting together all of the combinations of professional clothes that I own. Once I've got an outfit completely arranged (shoes, jewelry, etc.), I take a photo. At the beginning of each month, I'll put together a calendar of all the outfits I'll wear. 

The idea is that all the decision making will be done ahead of time and I can spend more time on a day-to-day basis defeating my son at dominos and losing to him at video games.

I feel like the more tasks I get "out of my head" and on a list, the more room I'll have for what I really care about.