Home and work. Personal and professional. A very thin line between the two.The balance is so hard. Some days it's just impossible.
My stupid watch was running 15 minutes slow this evening. I didn't realize it until after I left my meeting, thinking I still had plenty of time to head across town to daycare before it closed. But when I looked down at my phone as I grabbed my purse, it was already closing time and I was still 10 minutes away. I raced over to daycare, feeling tremendous guilt, hoping Andrew wasn't the last one there. He was hysterical when I arrived. He started bawling when Tristan left, leaving him as the last little guy in the room. It just about broke my heart.
24 hours in a day. I spend 11 of them at work, usually more at night after I get home. I maybe get to spend 4 hours a day with Andrew while he's awake during the week. Four short hours.
I head up to Boston on Thursday for a conference. It's the right thing to do professionally. Politically, if I want to secure a leadership position in the organization when they make their appointments later this month, I have to go. Good for the career...blah blah blah
But I can't help but feeling so guilty. I'll be leaving my little guy for the better part of 3 days. I'll be missing out on all that time with him. And I have to wonder - is it really worth it?
Days like today, weeks like this, it's just too hard trying to walk that line.
6 comments:
I have been in your shoes and would not want to go back. I worked and tried to juggle it all. Then we decided I should stay home for awhile. I felt guilty and unfulfilled as a person. I went back to work and the mommy guilt came back. I don't know what the answer is I do know this the second time I stayed home was magic. I found my place and that was being a Mom and a wife. It was hard for me and I didn't have a nifty job like you.
You just have to do what is right for you and your baby.
Thanks Gladys. I just wish I knew what the right thing is...
Girl, I hear ya! I had the same thing happen to me. I was in a no laptop/BlackBerry allowed meeting with my VP/GM and other leadership members and I just COULDN'T leave and I couldn't text my son's step-mom or grandma to get him. He was the last one there. He was so upset, not b/c he thought I had forgotten him, but b/c he thought something had happened to me! AWWWW! Listen to your heart, it will lead you in the right direction.
Word verification - sealit....with a hug, for you! :-)
Hard decision. I worked until my twins were born, and kicking and screaming I quit my job to be a at-home-mommy. Daycare for twins that were born premature and newborn was outrageous. Quit or Daycare...both hard choices but all in all we figured it was least expensive for me to quit.
I hated it!! It is five years later and I am finally at peace and actually feel blessed. Five years of uncertainity, feeling guilty for not working, depressions, weight gain, blah blah blah...then the Autism....blah blah blah. Needless to say, acceptance is the key! I fought it the whole time and it got the best of me. When I FIANLLY said to myself "You can't change the situation...focus on the blessings you see everyday. Not one day went by that I thought about my old job. But hey, we are a famliy...my role is to do whatever it takes to make this family whole and functional...and I do it. Now if I had had the better job...my husband would have stayed home. I always wondered how that would have worked. lol
I hope you find your peace hun!
I guess you can look at it this way... do what you have to do now to be secure and able to provide for him in the future. But then, I don't have kids, so I can't imagine what it's like... I hope it all goes well!
Jen, NeedSleepy, Ms S - thanks so much... your words mean a lot.
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