A few months back, to celebrate a friend’s birthday, we attended an event called Pecha Kucha. Much to my relief, this wasn’t something that involved a bunch of us running all over the park with our phones in front of our faces, trying to catch imaginary monsters. Rather, it was like a mini-Ted, where speakers were given 20 slides and 20 seconds to share their ideas about a topic. As if that wasn’t enough to make it sound like a gathering for intellectuals, it was held at the Witte Museum, just down the street from us.

So we’re in a museum, learning stuff. Leave it to Tahira to choose this as her birthday celebration!

But seriously, it was interesting, and there were cocktails to offset any learning that may have accidentally occurred, and perhaps most importantly, my children weren’t there.

However, it did open my eyes to a seemingly secret world of smart people where a night out involves intellectual discussion about ideas, future generations of the American workforce, and how to make things generally better in our community and beyond. I started to wonder if I had spent too much time at home in my yoga pants, cleaning up toys and wiping bottoms.

Then I was introduced to an acquaintance of my husband’s, who happened to be a friend I went to elementary school with. We chatted for a few minutes, and I learned about all the stuff she’s in charge of at her job, the other businesses she owns, all the cities in which she had lived, and all the companies for whom she had worked. She had come a long way from freezing my panties that night in second grade.

The first speaker took the podium, and began her talk on marketing strategies and how they can affect us. Her resume boasted many large, well-known brands, and she is currently the big cheese of all things marketing at this little old place down the road called The Pearl. She, too, appeared to be about my age, and mentioned her three year-old at home.

One of the subsequent speakers made reference to a plan for Texans which involves 60% of adults between the ages of 20 and 35 to have one or more graduate degrees by 2020. I leaned over to my friend and joked, “Phew! I really dodged that bullet!” And then I realized I was talking to someone who has more graduate degrees than I think I’m even aware of, to include such pithy majors as Russian, Statistics, and Mathematics. Seriously. What a loser, right?

As I looked around this large room, filled with people from all walks of life, I began to focus on how many of them were my age or younger, and what they were doing with their lives. They were here, first of all, and not just for the Old Fashioneds, like I was. Learning stuff. By choice. They were dressed professionally, because they had been at work all day, being in charge of people and adding to their already-impressive resumes. They were making contacts, and mapping out ways to connect these new contacts with their old ones to make something new and wonderful and exciting happen.

It got me thinking. What have I done with my life? These people have important jobs at important companies, and they’re doing important things. I strategize my work weeks according to how many days I can possibly stay in my pajamas until noon, or how I might be able to structure my productivity in such a way that a crass blog or long breakfast might fit in. I don’t read books, or attend book clubs, and if I did, they wouldn’t be worthy of any discussion. I don’t watch CNN or take Master’s classes at night or constantly dream of how I could take Kitchen Koncierge to the next level of entrepreneurial success. I don’t think big or aspire to own stuff, and I am TOTALLY okay with that.

If I were to go back into the professional workforce right now, I think I would have a very big problem. My resume would consist of things like this:

  • Can hold numerous conversations about nothing simultaneously
  • Can almost do 4th grade level math
  • Can keep 4-7 children alive in public before coffee
  • Able to successfully grocery shop with 1-4 kids
  • Can shower 5 people in under 10 minutes
  • Can create a meal for a family of 6 (or more) while nursing
  • Writes blogs about nothing comprised of no less than 30% profanity
  • Can clean a very poopy butt with only one wet wipee
  • Fluent in foreign language: toddler-speak (most of the time)
  • Can go four days without a shower, and weeks without shaving legs (in the winter)
  • Can lie about the tooth fairy like you wouldn’t believe

These skills are helpful in my daily life, to be sure, and I’ve worked tirelessly for years to hone them. But something tells me that unless I’m applying for jobs at HEB or Costco, I may be in trouble. For now, I’m just going to keep treading water as an unambitious mom and cook…and maybe start buying Lotto tickets so I don’t have to compete with all the smart people for an actual job in the future!