"you should write a book"

“You should write a book.”

I know I am not the only expat whose friends have said this to her. It’s sort of flattering but not very helpful, more distracting than anything else. It is a mighty leap from having lived in a lot of places to being able to write a book, a little like people in Taiwan assuming I could teach just because I spoke English. Maybe we should take a note from this advice about how to talk to our kids about their performances. The best compliments are when someone tells me that it felt true to them, that it made happy or made them think, not when they said I should try to make money from it.

I’m already a reluctant blogger, so not sure I’d have the wherewithal to write an entire book without getting thoroughly sick of myself. I started this with the vague hope that eventually it would contribute to leading to something paid and interesting in the future, but the more I move around and spend so much time managing the home and kid realm, the less employable experience finds it way onto my CV.  My stock answer, when someone asks me what I “do” now, is that I’m a driver and a cook and take some art classes and walk around exploring things and occasionally take part in the blog herd. I’m mostly satisfied with that, right now. 

And I’m not satisfied either.  I am looking for work that will somehow let me use my combined skills and education and experience in an interesting way and pay me for it.  It’s a long shot, I know, but I’m not desperate enough to take just anything yet. My husband’s longest stint in a job (and our longest time settled in one place) since we’ve been together is two and a half years and I want the kids to stay for longer than that the next time around. I’m starting to wonder if I need to be the one with the anchor job in order for that to happen. Moving around has certainly taught us all valuable somethings about transition and resilience. It wouldn’t hurt to learn some more about continuity and accountability, which don’t go along with not knowing for sure whether we’ll still be here a year from now.

I’m aware that I'm lucky to not have to be a professional anything at the moment.  While I may hate the vulnerability that is the byproduct of dependence on another person for material support, I do appreciate how it lets me explore and create and share what I come up with for free. Today I dropped off a handful of photos at a building site to men whose pictures I'd taken last week, and those three minutes completely transformed an up-until-then grouchy morning.  

So the short version is: still semi-satisfied, still looking, still hopeful, still grateful.