Career choice needed

The other day I brought my son to gymnastics, and admiring the impossible tricks little girls were doing on the floor, I realized that I've always wanted to be a gymnast. Or maybe I wanted to sing. Or play a musical instrument. Or go to circus school and become a circus performer. Oh, wait... I did go to circus school. I was just never good enough to become a performer. But I so admire people who do what they love.

Going back in time when I was growing up, I always knew who I wanted to be. Since I could grasp a concept of a "profession", I've always wanted to be a housewife. I wanted to do nothing but take care of my husband and my kids.

Fast forward to time when I really had to choose a profession - time to go to college. I still wanted to be a housewife, but no college offered that as a major. As far as my parents were concerned, I needed to choose a major and go to college. And because I was nowhere even close to getting married, I thought college was not such a bad idea. Just in case. Especially that I started to doubt that the housewife thing would work for me (boyfriends were not following me around, if you know what I mean).

But I had no idea who I wanted to be. I studied some computers in high school, and I kind of liked it, so I decided to choose that as a major. I started university back in Ukraine, and then continued here in the US, and got my degree in computer science. And with that I went to work.

It was really cool for a while. I got to design user interfaces. I didn't have too many deadlines, and I had lots of time to explore my creativity. People were nice to me. But a few years later, all this suddenly changed. In addition to doing UI, which I liked, I was assigned to do other things which I neither understood nor liked. Work became difficult. I was required to work extra hours and weekends. I got a manager who's job was looking over my shoulder and count the times I went to the bathroom. I started hating my job. Lucky for me, by that time I was pregnant and planning to go on maternity leave. Of course, there is really no maternity leave here - just a few weeks. I told them I'd be back in a year. They promised to hire me again. But of course I knew that I would never come back. It was time to pursue something I've always wanted to do - being a housewife. I loved it and I never regretted my decision. I thought that I would never go back to work. But that was a mistake.

My kids often play by themselves and no longer require every minute of my time. One of them is in school, and the other one starts school this fall. I will be left in the mornings all by myself. And I am not very good at being all by myself. Also, I am not the kind of person who watches daytime TV or goes window shopping for half a day. It's really nice to do all these things when you have to steal an hour from your housewife duties, but when it's all you are left with, it becomes a torture, at least for me.

And so I am left with this same question that usually 18-year-olds face - who I want to be? Sure, I have a degree in computer science, but who would hire me after an 8-year maternity leave? Especially that I can only work half days. It doesn't matter, I don't want to go back to programming anyway. I want to be a gymnast. Or a circus performer. I want to do what I love and be useful to people at the same time. Right now I am thinking Starbucks. "Good morning, what can I get you?" can make someone's day.