Not perfect, but close enough for now

"I need a jooooob." I whined to my best friend.

"So, get a job." She replied, handing me a glass of wine. It wasn't that she was not sympathetic. She had just heard it all before. A million times. I was tired of hearing myself talk about it too, so we changed the subject.

A few minutes later, we were laughing about the challenges of getting our kids ready for school. Her little guy started preschool this year, and I have a first grader. The lunches, the last minute potty trips, the wardrobe malfunctions. I admitted to pulling through the carpool line in Pj bottoms a few times.

"I don't know how the working Moms do it." My friend said. "Can you imagine having to be ready for work on top of all of that?"

"No." I replied. And then it hit me. I didn't just want A job. I wanted the perfect job. One where I didn't have to be at my desk before my kids went to school. One that had me home in time to pick them up. One that paid well enough to afford childcare. One that was satisfying and challenging and creative, but not so stressful that I would have to start scheduling those weekly therapy sessions again.

One that probably doesn't exist.

When I owned my business, I was fortunate enough to schedule myself around my family's needs, but spent many sleepless nights worrying about the budget. When I worked as a project manager, I made killer money and put in twelve hour days. Now that I am at home, I wrestle with boredom and loneliness. It is never perfect. It's never going to be.

No, I am not going to work on my resume any time soon, but I am going to work on my attitude.

She works hard for no money....

If my life were a movie, there would have been a point in the story, set more than a few years ago, when the heroine (me) realized that climbing the corporate ladder was not conducive to a family life. The soundtrack would swell (maybe Bittersweet Symphony by the Verve) as she packed up her desk and turned in her laptop. No longer a slave to the money 'til she dies, the movie gal would smile broadly as she waves goodbye to her coworkers and the elevator doors close. Cut to the scene a few years later when that same gal is snuggling a sweet baby on a blanket in a sunlit yard, blissfully happy to have found her true calling in life. THE END. You might have missed the sequel, though. The one were the beleaguered mother of two runs screaming back to her job just before her brain evaporates.

I know I chose to opt-out, as they call it these days. But today I am wondering why exactly I worked so hard for all those years. Instead of graduating from high school with honors and a scholarship in debate, I should have taken home economics, so I would know how to sew these so-called-iron-on patches onto the Brownie vest. Instead of graduating in the top 2% of my college class, I should have taken child psychology and more babysitting jobs. Instead of working on gantt charts and million dollar budgets, or (later) window displays and payroll taxes, I should have learned to knit. Our plans have me back in the workforce in a few more years, once the Little Guy is a little older. I just hope I can still string together coherent sentences by then.