Make a Little Birdhouse in Your Soul

Earlier and earlier these days we are required to know what we want to do in life. For those who achieve higher education, junior year seems to be the deadline... otherwise you may not pass Go, you may not collect $200. In high school I didn't know what I wanted, all I knew is that I wanted to get out of Moselle/Ellisville and attend a Christian school. At William Carey I flipped from theater to history to education to....nothing. Finally I had to sit down with my advisor and make a decision. I wanted to pass Go, to collect that $200, so I let others make the decision for me. I remembered all the times people had mentioned speech pathology to me, so I went with that. Luckily speech pathology is a career that begins at a graduate degree, so I was able to choose a liberal arts degree and worry about my career path later. I chose English, because literature is one of my passions and I'm good at the subject. Easy choice.

The first trimester of my senior year I did all that was expected of a good soon-to-be graduate student: I visited the university of my choice (University of Memphis), shadowed a speech pathologist, bought the GRE book, aced both of the Praxis(es?i?), planned to double-minor in Spanish and Education leaving me a back-up plan. Something didn't seem right though. I wasn't enthused about my future, just hopeful that I would become more interested as time went by. Unfortunatly came the adverse effect. I let the GRE sign-up date pass me by, dropped the education minor after a few classes (horr.i.ble), and graduated with my shiny liberal arts degree and nothing to do with it. English is a good major, don't get me wrong, but it needs something else to make it whole, i.e. business, education, journalism.

Since then I've been coasting along again, letting the decisions for my career future wait. I'm going to stay with the kids until they're in school, we decided. We've been focusing on what Matt wants to do, which is still undecided. My career/future/life other than family became easier to set aside as I became depressed. In the moments that I would think of what I wanted to do, nothing came to mind. I would mention publishing to others, joke about owning a bookstore.

Today I realized our plan of waiting until they were both in school wasn't going to pan out easily. I flipped through Monster.com, finding absolutely nothing that would justify me leaving my girls. I don't want to work to pay for daycare, and I don't want to work in a job that would leave me more stressed than I am now. Monster then asked me to write what my dream job would be. My first, most truthful instinct was 'anywhere that surrounded me with books.' Most people would probably laugh at that, but it gave me an epiphany. I've always wanted to work in a library. Some of my fondest childhood memories are at the Hattiesburg Library. As I started researching librarians, a certainty came over me, one that I've only felt a few times in my life. I found that my degree is a good, recommended stepping stone to a Masters of Library Science, the median annual earnings are definitely something I can justify, and there are other career paths I can follow other than a librarian with the MLS, such as archivist, curator, museum technician, the list goes on. I also found that USM offers a Masters of Library and Information Science, which can be obtained completely online if I choose, and also offers dual Masters of Library and Anthropology, or Library and History, which greatly interest me. I also found that if I so choose I could go further and even get a PhD... something I would most likely not attempt but is nice to have as an option.

So, I'm excited. I have a new plan in mind, which is to try and get a part-time job at a local library, to ensure that this is something I want to pursue. Then, work towards getting a Masters. I finally feel like there is a goal for me, something I can do and will be passionate about. No more floundering and letting time go by. Let the librarian mocking begin.