Choices

The children are gone -
coming home periodically
to eat and stay the night
get pampered a bit
and off they go
to their own lives
which makes me happy;

except for some
of the choices I’ve made
career versus them
money versus cookies and milk
it will always be a quandary.

So.

I start at the bottom again
with a new job on Monday
with a company I know nothing
about -
fully confident that I
on some level
can do
what they
need -

and the days of cookies
and milk, homework, and car-pools
will always feel like my
first professional position -
the one at which I’m best -

except I’ve been laid off
from that position-
in a sense-

and I need to find a place that
will fulfill me, as much as I
fulfill it.

I hope I don’t try to
put a nappy under
my new boss’s chin.
That would be embarrassing
for her.

I think she’s twelve.

She doesn’t have children.
She’s chosen a career.