The Tightrope

I think a lot about the decision to go back to work after having a baby.  My baby-having days are long in the rear-view mirror, but the decision is present, so present: since having my first child nearly six years ago I have kept at it, stuck to my guns and backed down in equal parts (every day).  I have worked full-time and part-time for three employers (plus freelance) in my attempts to Make It Work.  I have lost earrings and run in heels.  I have wondered why the conference room smelled like vomit only to realize it was my own sweater.  I have managed to locate my poise anyway, and given strong presentations to captains of industry in various states of sleep deprivation and disarray.  I have zoned-out to the whir of the breast pump in offices and dimly-lit bathrooms and airplanes.  I have typed proposals with one hand and taken strategy calls while feeding the baby.  I have wept on the subway and tried not to weep at the office.  I have experienced enormous, jump-around-the-room successes.  I have cultivated new talents.  I have had panic attacks alone in my car.  I have learned when (and how) to say no. (I have taken a deep breath and said yes a few times too.)  I have been late for pick-up more than a handful of times, and become indebted to four childcare providers across two children.

I think a lot about what we have gained as a result of these choices.  I think about our financial stability, and the work ethic we model for our children: we have much, but it doesn’t come for nothing.  I think about how being a dual-income-with-kids household has influenced my marriage, the ways my husband and I communicate, and job-share, and make compromises (professional and personal) for one another.  I think about how we never, ever take time together for granted.  This is another kind of modeling (these kids better be paying attention, amirite?).

I think about what I have gained: the never-gets-old rush of a mission accomplished that is mine and mine alone, and not linked to someone else’s milestones.  I think ahead, about my place in the world when the children have grown and don’t need me.  I think of this as my down payment on some future self, a stressful sort of double-life now so that someday I won’t sit there and wonder what my identity is.  I think about the fact that in spite of everything I am proud of myself.  Really proud.  And that matters to my children, and to my daughter especially, and I should find a way to communicate that to her someday.

I think about how well-socialized my children are, the trust and love they have for their teachers, their independence, their confidence to walk into a room and say goodbye to me.  I think about how, from the time LittleMan was a mere eight weeks old (what was I thinking???), we have taught them that we will leave but we will always, always come back for them.  We have taught them that being independent is part of being human.  In some small way it breaks my heart every time but I am proud of them, too.

I think, sometimes, about what I have lost.  I think about those few months when the children were both small and I had a few days off a week and the world was our oyster, and I think that those days were too few and over too fast.  (I wonder if the stay-home mothers feel the same way, hindsight being tinted rose when it comes to children.)  I have moments of jealous vanity.  I see the Lululemon Set striking out for yoga after drop-off and I think about my eyes becoming a little more sunken, the way I come off as frazzled, and that annoying paunch that comes from spending entirely too much time in the car.

I think about “success”, that word, which — not unlike “love” — has a thousand different definitions, and so many of them are deeply, deeply personal.  I think about how I define myself, and what I want out of life in the Grand Scheme.  I think about how I have everything I could want, how grateful I am.  I wonder what else is out there.  I think about the Big Risks and how it gets harder and harder to take them, the more that’s at stake.

“The resource you don’t have is time,” my husband said.  It’s true.  Right now, I want time.  I am hungry for it, greedy for it, hoarding it like a desperate person.  I am having trouble living in the moment because I can’t stop thinking about how much TIME everything takes and how badly I want to slow it all down.

But I also find it is impossible to let go.  I have invested too much, built something too meaningful to turn my back on.  Busy is the new sexy, right?  If that’s true, then I’m living the dream.

For years, I thought I was balancing work and kids.  But the realization is slowly dawning that I’m balancing me and me: these dueling expectations of self, past-present-future, the constant rejiggering of the definition of success.  I’ve been wrong, all this time.  And it’s time to get it right.