Please Tell Me the Answer!!

May 16 -- I had this toy when I was growing up -- a Magic 8 Ball.  I totally loved that toy.  Actually, I never really thought of it as a toy.  I saw it more as an oracle, a diviner of truth.  I worshipped it for all of it's helpful insights into my many childhood moments of confusion and indecision.  Actually, it wasn't my Magic 8 Ball. One of my older siblings had received it as a gift and by the time I got my grubby little hands on it, it had already broken.  My father, genius of all repairs of broken items (so as not to waste money purchasing a new, identical item) somehow drained the black fluid from the broken 8 Ball and poured it into a glass jar, along with the plastic, eight sided piece with all of the dramatic, life altering answers..."the answer is NO"... "It is certain"... and my all time favorite, "ask again later."

I spent an awful lot of time (more than I will actually admit) shaking and flipping that jar.  My dad secured the metal lid on so tightly, I swear it was indestructible.  I wonder where my mother put it because there is no way she threw that away.   My kids ended up with an 8 Ball when they were young. But it's not the same.  It doesn't have the same powers as the magical glass jar from my youth.  That sucker was awesome.  When I consider how many boys I realized weren't a good match well before I made a fool of myself going after them...I am forever indebted to "the magic 8 jar."

I kind of wish I could find it now.  There are so many things I would like to ask it.  Will Luke do well in college?  In life?  Will Tessa have a messy house?  And most important -- the constant questions swirling in my head right now about my professional future...should I keep trying for a teaching position?  Or should I turn my marketing efforts toward my husband's new company?  What is better for the family?  For my husband?  For me?

Right now I am so overwhelmed.  I land on various scenarios faster than a hummingbird darting from flower to flower in a garden filled with bee balm.  (A hummingbird favorite.)   There is nobody with a divine telegram giving me a certain direction.  There are no certain, clarifying answers.   I know, I know.  "Ask again later."