In the blink of an eye, or so it seems, I was thrust into this new role of working mama. I wasn’t but eight hours in and the clichés were coming true – my phone was dinging with emails every two seconds, we were late for my son’s soccer game, I’d left the idea of making a homemade dinner in the dust and instead opted for takeout and I felt like I was mentally holding onto about 100 different kite strings on a windy day. In all my five years of being a stay-at-home mom, I had never juggled this many things at once. That’s not to say that life as a stay-at-home (and work-part-time-from-home) was a cake-walk, but the daily act of having professional deadlines and responsibilities mimics having another child that desperately needs you, but this child cannot be distracted by a breast, pacifier or the television. This “child” is paying you and you are on a team that is counting on each other to reach a common goal, so there isn’t much room for putting things off until a more convenient time or telling them that you’ll be ready to work after they watch another episode of Bubble Guppies.
And what I quickly realized is that being a working mom is not something that you just organically make your way through like following a gently winding path in the country – it’s like merging onto a highway where everyone is going 80 mph and you’re busting your ass to find a spot in the mix. Everyday has to be carefully orchestrated, strategized and scheduled so that priorities are able to be, well, priorities. My day goes zooming by while I try to keep tabs on all the different things flying at me – clients, emails, projects, meals, bills, laundry (ha!) and exercise (double ha!) – and unless I have time carved out for and a reminder of (with an accompanying alarm and a message) a specific task, it ain’t happening. Right now, for example, I am writing this with my tensed shoulders up near my ears, eyeballing the clock, trying to get the most out of this hour that I’ve penciled in. In the days of yore, I would’ve used the online thesaurus to give this post a little more pop, but today people, I’ve got an hour and there’s no bones about it – must stay on target! Gone are the days of flitting around a post, giving it some space, coming back to it when the juices are flowing. It’s GO time!
My weekends, which at one time were opportunities to relax and stay in one’s pajamas all day are now “planning periods” for the week ahead. I use a chunk of the weekends to meal plan, shop for said meals, do laundry and any other chore that surely won’t make the cut during the week – not to mention spend time with my son and husband (who?). The irony here is that the overall feeling I have with being a working mom is similar to how I felt when my son was an infant and I became a stay-at-home-mom. A part of me (okay, all of me) was in survival mode then and I felt successful at the end of the day if everyone in the house was at least fed and somewhat sleeping – bathing didn’t matter, nor did dishes, folded laundry or any other annoyance/chore. Today, I feel this grind as well and if I had a free moment, I would be Googling how the hell other moms balance work and non-work life! Seriously, I just set a calendar reminder to Google how the hell other moms balance this.
On the upside, although I feel this urgency to be doing a thousand things until I drop at the end of the day because God forbid I get swamped with a huge work project tomorrow, I actually feel way more organized and capable than I did before. Before, I mostly didn’t bother with preparing for the week ahead because I knew I would have the time to do whatever I needed to (which was a fallacy). But now, for example, there is always food in the house and meals planned because there has to be. That’s not to say that we don’t still have time for relaxing and fun – in fact, we went on a mini vacation this past weekend and something that surprised me was how much I enjoyed every minute of it – it really felt like a break, not just an extension of my normal week. Like a little more contrast had been added to my life. And what shocked me even more is that when we got back, I wasn’t bummed for “real life” start again – I was excited to pick up where I’d left off with work! Who knew that the part of my brain that has been in sleep mode the past five years is thriving on the challenges that my new work life is offering me?!
The other huge upside is something called a paycheck. Right now, that little gem is worth it to me to have to formally schedule a date with Costco. I also think not having earned a steady paycheck for five years does a little something to ya – personally, I’m thrilled that someone still wants to pay me for my time and skills!
After picking up my son from school yesterday, I pounced on a woman in the hall whom I knew was a working mom and basically took her collar and shook her while demanding, “Tell me your secrets!!” This is what she had to say: 1. Go to Target after 8pm on weeknights to do your errands and it will save me a boatload of time (as opposed to Saturdays at Target) 2. Do you have a cleaning lady? You no longer have time to clean. Get one (I loved having someone sternly tell me that I no longer had time to clean – yes ma’am, I’ll get right on that one!) and 3. It will get easier once you get into the rhythm.
