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.