Does busy count?

Coming into the beginning of fall I've been busier than I would ever have imagined. I have a standing baby-sitting job, another part-time job, volunteer work with the church, household duties (that are actually getting done!)....I still feel like I'm waiting though, like I'm not fully immersing myself into the stream of life. While I know you can't really live just sitting around staring at the computer screen I don't think sheer business is the answer. It can't be about making money to buy more stuff or cramming every house of your day with things to do. I know this because there were plenty of times at school when it felt like I was simply too busy to live. But maybe even this was me obsessing about making the right grades and trying to be a good girl at home and didn't have so much to do with how much I was actually doing. I suppose you could say that I'm still looking for a calling. As a woman I know that there are certain built in aspects of my calling, but as Natalie I want to know what that looks like for me. Maybe part of that means going back to grad school. Honestly that's sort of scary. Grad school means getting reference letters. That means going back to all those professors who waved me off to grad school and admitting that I couldn't stick it out or at least that I changed my mind. In reality I know they probably don't care. Over two years out I'm so far off their radar -new rising stars have taken my place. Even then I don't think they much cared what I did so long I was doing what I wanted to do with the training I'd gotten. At that time though I was so caught up in what I was supposed to do that I sort of lost sight of that. And that's not even the truth. I wanted to go to grad school, but when I got there I wanted to be out of grad school. According to some people I'd made a bad choice of school. According to my parents I'd done the unforgivable. Fortunately for them my younger sister (last I'd heard) is planning to get a doctorate and still has her 4.0. It's a bitter feeling thinking that's all they wanted me for, and now that my sister has so ably stepped into my scholastic shoes they don't need me. Maybe that isn't true, but it certainly feels that way. I don't actually feel resentful about it -more sad that that's all the worth they saw in me. So as you can see, in this search for calling and purpose there's still a lot of ghosts I need to vanquish.