mommy's thoughts

This is the end of the second month of being at work full-time for me. I think I had some illusion that when I finally went full time again I would actually be "back" as in "back like I was before" but I see now that that was really naive.

There is the stereotype of the working mom "balancing" home and career. That isn't the word I would choose to describe my experience, because I haven't been "balancing." That would imply that there had been some sort of difficult choice between home and work, and there hasn't been. I have always been centrally motivated by the understanding that Monroe's young years are precious and she'll only be ONE once. So work is not even in the running to win--it's like "balancing" a soap bubble versus a 15-passenger van. No contest.

What HAS been hard has been accepting the consequence of this new limitation in my career. Yes, I am full time again, but I can't "go the extra mile" or "give 110%." Everyone I work with seems okay with what I produce as far as I can tell, but no one is BLOWN AWAY. And in my pre-baby career, I was kind of addicted to being able to blow people away when I wanted too. My sense of myself as a capable person has been all tied up in the quality of the final product I am able to produce... and as my time has been limited, my ability to impress myself has been limited too. It is painful to have ideas I can't flesh out. It hurts to let go of details I know I could have perfected with just another 1/2 hour here or there.

It has been hard for me to accept my limitations this year. Really hard. But I look at Monroe, at me, and at Eben and I know I have chosen well. Even when sometimes the choice was just to goof off for a while so I could be a relaxed mom later when I was put on the spot!! The reality is that there are only a certain number of hours in the day and the trick is to spend them in a way that aligns not with other people's sense of what is urgent but with your sense of what is truly valuable in this life.