Sunny book club meeting turns blue

I spent a lovely afternoon with my book club friends, discussing The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon over coffee, quiche, shortbread (made by me--my first time ever), and delicious gluten-free lemon lavender cookies. We sat around a rectangular table in a sunny yellow dining room that had exposed wood moldings and a built-in buffet with a mirror. I love turn-of-the-century homes---wood floors, built-in-bookcases, and leaded windows. B's baby boy made cute gurgly yummy noises with each bite of sweet potato and rice cereal. Conversation lasted about three hours, and as usual I probably gabbed too much because I was high on caffeine (and also woefully short on adult conversation these days). The day was warm and sunny and felt almost spring-like. By our next book club meeting, it will be spring.

As usual, we talked about the book for maybe 20 minutes and then lapsed into a deep and somewhat depressing conversation about the state of our low-paying, unsatisfying jobs with little-to-no maternity/paternity leave or other health and family benefits. The burden of student loans came up too---loans for educations that didn't get us where we wanted to go, due to poor academic advising, or non-existent preparation for making it as a humanities major (practical skills like how to write a grant or market your work, etc).

It all made me wonder, why does it have to be this way? Why do we put up with incompetent managers, low wages, lack of decent benefits, and 50 hour or more work-weeks? Because I've been mostly self-employed for the last ten years, I'm not sure I could make it in a typical office-type job. I know I can't make it in retail or food service (been there, done that). I'm also realizing that the career I thought I wanted and trained for in college (school teacher--art education) I really don't want. There's lots of reasons for this, but mostly school culture scares me (there is such a dysfunctional relationship between parents, teachers, students, school staff, school board, and physical school environment that I couldn't possibly see how any school reform would work other than closing down all the schools and starting from scratch from a completely new model) and I'm very much an introvert who works better with people one-on-one (why I enjoy teaching private music lessons).

What if more people were self-employed? Started their own businesses? The reason why my friends stay in their jobs is because it offers stability: a constant paycheck. There's a lot to be said for stability and security (I wish I had more of it myself). But to see so many broken people who aren't using their talents to the fullest (myself included) or who have lost a sense of vocation (me too) is truly disheartening.

What's the answer? I don't know, but in my own life I'm trying to live by the wisdom of "Don't buy things you don't need with money you don't have." It's really hard. But I find that when I sleep on it, I don't go back and buy it the next day.

Also, if we could figure out how to live in villages again (I now know what it means when they said it takes a village to raise a child. I'm also beginning to believe that stay-at-home-alone-with-your-fussy-toddler-motherdom is as unnatural as putting your child in daycare for 40 hours a week. But that's another topic for another day...). If we lived in villages (okay let's call it what it is: a commune) and worked, played, cooked, raised children, etc. together on a small acreage somewhere--I think this would solve a lot of social ills. Yeah, there are lots of problems to living on a commune too, but if you lived by people you actually liked, then it would be fun (I think) and would eliminate the crappy-job syndrome/maternity leave problem that is plaguing many of my Gen X friends.

But today's book club meeting was truly lovely. Time spent with friends over coffee is a too-rare occurrence in my life.