I meant to be a full time graduate student by now. It had been the plan since I got pregnant with bambi--I'd run the bookcart and live off jesse's income because I couldn't afford to go back to work as a barista given the cost of childcare. And now I have a school age kid and time on my hands. Back to school made sense. And was reassuring to look forward to all those times I felt sheepish about seeming (being) a kept woman--we have seasons and the stay at home mom one was just that: temporary. It didn't make me a bad feminist; no more than me supporting jesse through his grad school made him a leech. Sure, I wanted to avoid the evangelical kid stereotype where we fool ourselves into thinking we're modern feminist women ("we can be feminists and christians too") because we work a low skill job to support our husbands while they get the high skill degree that sets them up to be lifelong "providers" then we, the wives, then retire from the workforce (and often the world) to raise as many children as we can.  This sounds like the 50s but its a very real scenario that plays out over and over in the culture I was raised in still today. 

I barely managed to finish the application in time, got accepted at a SUNY school for a fully online degree in library science-- all while spiraling into a panic of flashbacks from high school and college. It was bad enough that I made an appointment with a psychiatrist and a few weeks before the start of grad school I had a brand new ADHD diagnosis. I stuck it out for a few weeks as my face bled from reverting fully back to my teenage self's face picking habit, I woke myself up screaming most nights, if I slept at all, and sobbed over online discussion board contributions that took me a full day to compose. Then I dropped out. 

Now I have reading days. bookselling days. sourcing days. I've had two bookcart installations. This makes it sound like I have a lot going on--but read back over that. To the outside eye I am a stay at home mom who spends her child free time reading, thrifting and browsing bookstores and dabbling in my instagram business. Must be nice. It is. I did not want to be this. I learn more and more about ADHD-- see all the places and times I should have been diagnosed as a child-- and wonder if I would be a stay at home mom if I actually had been diagnosed at a normal age. And if it's too late.

And so, this continues to be, a record of apparent aimlessness. Maybe its record will add up to something.

one of the two installations that make me seem legitimate.

haphazard courses of self led study.

an ever growing library and child.

day long walks through central park till the weather got too cold for indefinite outdoor outings.