Irish Daisy

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 ...

In July I lost my job. Layoff – a " it’s not you, it’s that the new management has no idea what you even do ,” kind of thing. And now, here I am, at home. The first time I’ve been unemployed since I was 18 years old…so, it’s been a while. Being me, I immediately set up a structure to work on what I’m going to do next – a schedule for updating the resume, polishing LinkedIn, getting my stuff out there on CareerBuilder and Indeed, networking and interviewing. The girls had a few weeks of summer left, so I pulled them out of summer camp and worked bike rides, parks and pool trips into my daily routine.  Great, I can do this! Rapid Fire School was scheduled to start at the end of August. Yay, I’ll be able to get more done without needing to shoo squabbling children out of the room. No one interrupting me to tattle on a mean sister, no one asking if they can just watch TV "N oooowwww???" , no one demanding to know what they can eat for the 20 th time in 30...