So am I a Housewife or a Designer?

If you've read my about page, you already know that I'm a homemaker and have been for a while.  I'm going to be honest here and say that I actually wanted to be a homemaker since I was about 16.  My mom was a single working mom and I'm her youngest child, and I would often play homemaker while she was off at work.  I would clean and cook and generally take care of the house.  I wasn't very good at it back then, of course.  I was 16 and I didn't actually have a teacher.  I was pretty much teaching myself how to do everything.  It's taken me a long time, but I'm actually starting to feel like I'm good at it.

Well, I also wanted to be an artist from a young age.  I think I started telling people I was going to grow up and be an artist when I was maybe 10, and around the age of 14 I started pursuing art pretty seriously.  I'm a fairly decent artist.  I'm not a great master or anything, but I like to believe that I'm pretty good.

One of my favorite paintings I've done.

I thought it would be a pretty cool idea to combine my two passions.  If I stayed home to be a homemaker, I figured, I would have the time and freedom to pursue my art as well!  Right?  That makes a lot of sense.  But somewhere along the way, I ended up putting the art part of me aside and focused almost exclusively on the homemaker part.  I wanted to be the best homemaker ever.  I loved it when my mom said I was just like my grandma (who was an amazing homemaker), and reading all the cool stuff about home care filled me with happiness. 

Over the years, I've stopped thinking of myself as an artist and instead think of myself as a homemaker.  When someone asks me what I do, I usually tell them I'm a housewife.  That, I have found, is an excellent way to stop a conversation dead in its tracks.  I live in NY state, and even though I'm in a more conservative agricultural part of the state, it's still a pretty liberal area in general.  Women just don't stay home to play homemaker, so no one really knows what to say to you when you tell them you're a housewife.  It's like you told them that you're from Mars or something.  I think it's especially confusing for people because I don't have children and they can't figure out why I would even want to stay home. 

Well it occurred to me recently that I'm not exclusively a homemaker anymore.  Yes, it's true, I take care of my home and my family, but I'm also a designer.  I have my own business!  I pay self-employment taxes like a grown up and everything!  Finally, I have an answer to the "what do you do?" question that won't end the conversation!

Except, in the moment, it totally slips my mind that I'm anything but a homemaker.  Isn't that funny?  Apparently, in my mind, I'm just a homemaker.  I can't figure out if that says something about me or not.  Like, am I dismissing my design work?  Or maybe my homemaking is more important to me?  Hmm. 

My husband says I don't give myself enough credit with my design work, and he's probably right.  I have a habit of being too hard on myself by expecting perfection and instant success.  He also thinks I should definitely call myself a designer.  I want to agree with him, but I just have such a hard time remembering to do it! 

So, I need to start practicing.  I'm going to start thinking about myself as a designer, and try to remember that the work I do is important in my life.  It gives my days meaning, it brings joy to my life, so I should try to take it more seriously.