You know: Working three days a week from home, enjoying two days home alone with my boys and then partying up the weekends with the hubby and kids in the new city where we just settled.
Poppin’ bubbly every night, yo.
Six months ago, I would have told you that the situation I’m currently in would be perfect. A golden opportunity to embrace a fine balance of career, time with my kids, home management and exploration of our new town. I thought this was exactly what I wanted…and I got it!
But I’m lonely. My heart aches. I miss SO much. And I want things to be different.
Call me nuts, but I yearn to be in a workplace setting with other people. I want to have a time I
I miss my coworkers and — dare I say it? — MEETINGS. I miss knowing everything that is going on in our department and being part of a team and ‘getting stuff done.’ And feeling that sense of accomplishment at the end of the day when, although I undoubtedly didn’t get to everything, I at least chipped away at the mounting heap of never-ending projects.
I miss impromptu lunches, ‘Ah-ha!’ moments, walking amidst the hustle and bustle on the city streets and feeling that surge of I’m really good at what I do when someone calls or stops by my office to say, “We need you.”
Trust me, I know that working outside the home is not always peachy. I’ve done it for 13 years, since three months after college graduation. I don’t miss the crappy days when I royally screw up something, or a coworker is annoyed with me and talks behind my back, or there are a dozen fire drills thrown in my face before 10 a.m. (not literal fire drills — those only happen once per year and require us to walk down 32 flights of steps.)
No, I’m talking about the fire drills where someone bursts into your office with smoke coming out of their ears and their hands are all shaky, and they don’t know what needs to be done, but SOMETHING better be done within the hour to fix SOMETHING seemingly more important than the conversation I was just having with a coworker about the next season of Downton Abby.
And I don’t miss deadlines. And I don’t miss those people who wear ungodly amounts of perfume. Or those women who wear white sneakers all day because getting up from their desk to go to the bathroom apparently requires superior athletic skills. And I don’t miss office cattiness.
...or do I?
I think what this move with my family has taught me…well let’s be honest, I could go on for WEEKS about what this move has taught me about myself, my kids, my marriage, my priorities, my sanity…but in regards to my career, I’ve realized just how important it is to me. Yes, I’m currently still working — for the same company and people, just from afar and at reduced hours. But it’s so different not being there.
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So at this point in my life, I know for certain that I love to work, and I want to work and I will choose to work. Outside of the home. With a scanner down the hallway, and humans walking down the hallway, and the need to sometimes yell profanity down the hallway.
And enjoy free Diet Coke whenever I want.*
*Please note that it is a prerequisite for any job I have. Each place I’ve ever worked has provided free soda. And I drink it. Not gallons of it like Rita downstairs, but it serves as my afternoon pick-me-up. (And I totally made up 'Rita,' but I know you know someone like her where you work. I think it’s Wal-Mart that sells those
What’s so freaking awesome about being a mom in 2014 is that there isn’t just one way to do it. Because that would be horribly, detrimentally boring. Whether we work inside or outside the home, with or without a pint-size crew in tow, we should own what we are doing and why we are doing it — and be darn tootin’ proud of it.
Because God knows wherever we are and whatever we’re doing — and if the kids are there or not — we’re all working. We’re always working. It’s a slight issue all of us moms have.
We’re worker bees.
And this little worker bee just can’t wait to buzzzzz around an office again. With a cold, sweet D.C. in hand.
-Melissa
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