whitebutterfliesblog

Most of my time is spent contemplating, what is next? I felt like it was so simply laid out for me as a kid. You go to grade school, then high school, college, perhaps a Masters Degree, get married, and have kids.  Kindergarten was a big milestone. Losing teeth, learning to ride a bicycle, learning to read. Then later in grade school, starting to like boys, getting boobs, getting my first period. In junior high, first French kiss, first dates, new friends, greater freedom from Mom and Dad. Sweet sixteen, learning to drive a car, and the amazing freedom that driving a car provided. Off to college, living on my own, becoming 21. Out of college, living on my own for the first time. Figuring out, what am I going to do with my life?  Love lessons.  Then finding the man who I can’t imagine a minute without.  Inspiring each other to achieve our career aspirations and dreams. Getting our graduate degrees. Buying our first home. Creating two little amazing human beings.

My amazing little human beings are both now in school full time. Kindergarten and second grade.  Now what? I am 40 years old and I have been a stay-at-home Mom for the past four years.  I never had any intention of staying at home. It was an agonizing choice every single day. Give up the work I loved for the amazing human beings I loved more than I had ever imagined was possible. Create a new version of myself that wasn’t defined by how much money I earned or how much influence I had at the office. Leave my expensive brain on the shelf for the simplistic tasks of wiping butts, drying tears, holding hands, reading stories, and shaping the lives of the most important people I know.

I’ll be the first person to admit that I had no idea how hard being a parent is. I was a career person and a non-parent with lofty ideals of what my life would look like. I would be the hard-charging Mom who showed my daughter that she could have it all. She would have a career and a family and never look back. She would know that she too could earn her Masters and be successful and accomplished, with or without a man by her side. My son would marry a woman like me, confident, intelligent, self-made, accomplished. What I didn’t know, was that when you become a Mom, from the moment you are pregnant, you view life a lot differently. I didn’t know the amount of tears that would spill from my face when I handed my child over to someone else for the day. That they would be the one rocking them to sleep, wiping their tears, nurturing them and loving them, while I lay locked in an office somewhere, typing on a screen about matters that seemed so unimportant compared to holding my child. I also didn’t know how much I would feel like as an impostor as mother. I didn’t know that I would rock my baby for hours, not being able to console them, and feel like I was not cut out for this job. That maybe, just maybe, the person who had them all day, might have been better suited for this kind of thing than I was.

But fate stepped in. The decision wasn’t mine to make. I left my job for a new zip code that would provide a better life for my family. And, in my new zip code, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of room for the person I was in my old zip code. Paying a woman a high salary and giving her a high-ranking position is not too popular in these parts. It would cost me more to work than not to.

And now what? Do I try to reclaim the person I was four years ago?  I am not the same as I once was but I do know that I have a lot more to offer. I am more of a person now, than I was then. When I worked full-time, with two babies at daycare, I had no idea how much I was short-changing my children. Somehow you can ward off a crying baby, but you can’t ward off a demanding boss. They pay your salary which makes them the priority. My children were not my priority. They were really hard work that was sometimes really nice to hand off to someone else to deal with. They were just part of my multi tasking and having it “all”. I could juggle 100 balls at a time, at least that was what I wanted the world to think, and my children were just going to be part of the juggling act. I get it now though. I get it for a million small reasons and I get it for a million big reasons.

But what is next? How do I take the next step without it being so easily laid out and defined for me? How do I get to maintain what I have but gain back part of what I chose to let go of years ago?