I Need a Better Map
Sometimes dramatically changing your life changes who you are. Sometimes you get to the point where you hardly recognize yourself on the other side.
I’d always imagined myself from a young age as a career woman who would set the corporate world on fire and accomplish remarkable things. I always planned for children, but I was going to stop at two, and make both halves of my life function in tandem – working and momming with equal fervor.
The thought of deviating from this plan – having more kids, jumping off the career track, staying at home – was entirely alien. Dare I say, inconceivable.
And I did it for a long time.
I started work in corporate America right out of school. Climbing my way up, steadily advancing my career – not as rapidly as planned due to the constraints of marrying and procreating with someone who’s chosen vocation created rigid, inconvenient schedules – and generally making it work just like I’d mapped out decades ago.
For 12 years, I was as passionate about being a great manager and employee as I was about being a great mom. Sometimes the demands of being both at once made me feel as if I was going to rip apart into tiny, tattered pieces that would scatter in the wind, and there would be nothing left.
And then it went away. The corporate job, the commute, business clothes and makeup, the balance and juggling every day.
One year ago, my life took a hard turn in the opposite direction, I’ve been wandering in a foreign landscape and I think I need a new map.
Just here, trying to figure out who I’ve become and which direction to take next. I don’t know if the demands of being both a good parent and driven employee wore me down and I just can’t bear the prospect of going back into the trenches of struggling to do both well and continually feeling like I’m failing at both, or if I am just a different person now and what I thought I wanted has utterly changed.
I have discovered over the past year how much of my kids’ lives I was missing – and, no, this is not a suggestion that more women stay home; it’s a commentary on the demands of working parent life and the rigid inflexibility of butt-in-chair corporate cultures that break parents under the pressure of trying to be a good, dedicated employee and a good parent at the same time. It’s become clear over the past year that I now have a much deeper connection with our kids than Mr. Puff because he’s not here, and the couple of hours in the evening before bedtime aren’t enough time for him to have a deep engagement with their lives.
Also, working 50+ hours a week, taking less vacation than I accrued each year, missing every school event, and pawning a kid with pneumonia off on relatives so that I didn’t miss “too much” work time, wasn’t enough to save me from a layoff when the business wanted to cut labor costs – but it was enough to make one of my kids struggle in school and make all of them feel like they didn’t have as much of me as they needed.
So, when push came to shove out the door, we took a hard look at our life, considered the costs of both of us working high-demand careers, and made the decision that we would take a family pay cut and I would freelance from home.
And here I am, still figuring out how to be a successful entrepreneur, actually get work done from home, and be a good enough mom and wife. I’ve volunteered with the PTA (which is a bit of a bigger commitment than I realized at the time), and I’m volunteering with other community organizations for my kids.
I’m still juggling, but the footing and objects are considerably different.
I’m still working every day to figure out who I’ve become and who I want to be. To draw a new map through this strange land I’ve found myself in. The me who graduated from college wouldn’t recognize the freelance work-from-home mother of three I am today. I’m renegotiating all my roles: mother, wife, writer, artist, business professional, feminist, activist, volunteer, occasionally overwhelmed human.
And I’m trying to square myself with the discovery that instead of setting the corporate world on fire, I’m now a woman who is proud of organizing all the kitchen drawers into a more usable arrangement before posting newsletters and managing social media for the PTA, walking to pick my kids up from school, helping with homework, and making dinner.
Apparently, I’m still driven, just in a direction I never expected.
*Yes, for those who are curious, I did remember the first minimum day and was at the school on time
I’d always imagined myself from a young age as a career woman who would set the corporate world on fire and accomplish remarkable things. I always planned for children, but I was going to stop at two, and make both halves of my life function in tandem – working and momming with equal fervor.
The thought of deviating from this plan – having more kids, jumping off the career track, staying at home – was entirely alien. Dare I say, inconceivable.
And I did it for a long time.
I started work in corporate America right out of school. Climbing my way up, steadily advancing my career – not as rapidly as planned due to the constraints of marrying and procreating with someone who’s chosen vocation created rigid, inconvenient schedules – and generally making it work just like I’d mapped out decades ago.
For 12 years, I was as passionate about being a great manager and employee as I was about being a great mom. Sometimes the demands of being both at once made me feel as if I was going to rip apart into tiny, tattered pieces that would scatter in the wind, and there would be nothing left.
And then it went away. The corporate job, the commute, business clothes and makeup, the balance and juggling every day.
One year ago, my life took a hard turn in the opposite direction, I’ve been wandering in a foreign landscape and I think I need a new map.
Turn, Turn, Turn
So, here I am.
Just here, trying to figure out who I’ve become and which direction to take next. I don’t know if the demands of being both a good parent and driven employee wore me down and I just can’t bear the prospect of going back into the trenches of struggling to do both well and continually feeling like I’m failing at both, or if I am just a different person now and what I thought I wanted has utterly changed.
I have discovered over the past year how much of my kids’ lives I was missing – and, no, this is not a suggestion that more women stay home; it’s a commentary on the demands of working parent life and the rigid inflexibility of butt-in-chair corporate cultures that break parents under the pressure of trying to be a good, dedicated employee and a good parent at the same time. It’s become clear over the past year that I now have a much deeper connection with our kids than Mr. Puff because he’s not here, and the couple of hours in the evening before bedtime aren’t enough time for him to have a deep engagement with their lives.Also, working 50+ hours a week, taking less vacation than I accrued each year, missing every school event, and pawning a kid with pneumonia off on relatives so that I didn’t miss “too much” work time, wasn’t enough to save me from a layoff when the business wanted to cut labor costs – but it was enough to make one of my kids struggle in school and make all of them feel like they didn’t have as much of me as they needed.
So, when push came to shove out the door, we took a hard look at our life, considered the costs of both of us working high-demand careers, and made the decision that we would take a family pay cut and I would freelance from home.
And here I am, still figuring out how to be a successful entrepreneur, actually get work done from home, and be a good enough mom and wife. I’ve volunteered with the PTA (which is a bit of a bigger commitment than I realized at the time), and I’m volunteering with other community organizations for my kids.
I’m still juggling, but the footing and objects are considerably different.
To Boldly Go…
The kids are back in school again*, I survived the first summer working from home with three kids, one of whom had a broken arm, with my sanity mostly intact. Everyone is still alive too…except the dog. We lost our last pup a few days after his 14th birthday. He and the house were the only casualties in three months of ongoing mayhem.
I’m still working every day to figure out who I’ve become and who I want to be. To draw a new map through this strange land I’ve found myself in. The me who graduated from college wouldn’t recognize the freelance work-from-home mother of three I am today. I’m renegotiating all my roles: mother, wife, writer, artist, business professional, feminist, activist, volunteer, occasionally overwhelmed human.
And I’m trying to square myself with the discovery that instead of setting the corporate world on fire, I’m now a woman who is proud of organizing all the kitchen drawers into a more usable arrangement before posting newsletters and managing social media for the PTA, walking to pick my kids up from school, helping with homework, and making dinner.
Apparently, I’m still driven, just in a direction I never expected.
*Yes, for those who are curious, I did remember the first minimum day and was at the school on time
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| Endeavor's Rook Takes Queen (Rook) 8/2003 - 8/2017 - Beloved, sweet, silly pup |
