growing together
Reinvention, 15 years in the making By Chris Worthy
WNC Parent columnist
Fifteen years. We recently celebrated my son’s 15th birthday. We also celebrated 15 years in this house. Whatever level of crazy it takes to move with an infant and a kindergartener, we’ve got it. It was also around this time 15 years ago that I became absolutely certain that the thing that needed to go — that one thing that was about to snap the camel’s back in two — was my law practice. I didn’t know what I would do to ward off the intellectual atrophy that I was already starting to feel, but I knew it wouldn’t involve midnight calls from the jail and carrying a breast pump in my briefcase. Yes, many women do that
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and do it well. I just knew I wasn’t one of them. It wasn’t until about six months after our move that I responded to an ad from our community newspaper. My husband held the paper out to me like a lifeline to a drowning person. “Call them,” he said. It wasn’t that I was unhappy as a fulltime, stay-at-home mom. I was fulfilled in many ways. Had my first winter in that new role not also included a move, a baby with recurring ear infections, a strongwilled 5-year-old and a husband who had to spend a lot of time on the road, my attitude might have been different (and better). But I was shriveling up without a little something to call my own. I never expected to still be a stay-athome mom 15 years later. Technically, I am a work-at-home mom, but my life has only made subtle shifts. Taking stock, I can see that those little changes have added up. We started teaching our son at home after his third-grade year. If you
had asked me about that 15 years ago, I would have said I was more likely to join NASA than be a home-schooling parent. I certainly never expected to make a second career out of writing. And I’ve started a book, just in case someone wants to pay me to write lots of words all at once. In this, my 15th year of reinvention, I also started taking continuing legal education classes. I’ve “had the itch,” as my husband says, to wear conservative suits and hang out at the jail again. It will be awhile, if ever, before I’m ready to make that leap, but it’s hanging out there in the realm of possibility. These 15 years have taught me so much. I can do hard things. Sometimes a hesitant move leads to great things, great friends and a new start. I am blessed beyond measure. And most of all, I am excited for the next thing. Contact Chris Worthy at chris@worthyplace.com.
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