when type A starts to blog :: BlissDom changed my life

woah, this is a heavy topic for me.

i’ve been what i call a tangential blogger for a few years now.  it started with simple posts about my first son to keep the family around the world updated.  then i started to dabble with furniture refinishing before we moved into our new home.

i’ve always worked.  i’m a type A, driven, competitive chick.  i’ve worked in entertainment and tech since i was 18.  i’d be lying if i said that seeing LinkedIn updates doesn’t make me a bit green, as my schooling would suggest i should be fighting for the C-Suite.

Barbara Jones was my 2nd boss and mentor.  to this day, she continues to be inspirational, a great friend and an incredible mentor.  she grounds me, sets me straight, and has always supported every personal and career decision i’ve made.

when she teamed up with Alli Worthington to run BlissDom conferences, i never thought in a zillion years i’d attend.  after all, i was a busy strategy and software product mgmt consultant who blogged about gassy babies and painted night stands.

as we started a family, i got glimpses of work/family balance struggles.  just like my yoga practice, i was never balanced.

so this is what all those lectures by female CEOs were about.  finding balance.

i usually felt like i was giving a B- effort at home and to my clients.  turns out my clients seemed very happy as the work kept rolling in.

after my second son was born, my consulting continued and i quickly learned that working from home ain’t a walk in the park!  i’d often have to mute conference calls as hot wheel races and wrestling matches were occurring in the next room.

then i took on a project for a friend…a very interesting tech start-up with big potential…i figured it would be a 3-6 month project.  within moments of starting, my schedule looked like this:

• 5:30 wake up and start work
• 6:59 shower and get ready
• 7:00 gets kids ready for the day
• 8:30 out the door to school
• 9:00 arrive at office
• 5:00 leave office
• 5:15 get home, cook, baths, play with kids while checking emails
• 7:30 bedtime
• work until midnight
• wash, rinse and start over

a total grind.

i didn’t realize how much home life was being affected cuz the kids never said anything.  how could they?  they were 9 months and 3!

a year later, my oldest son, who’s slept in his crib since day one and has never allowed us to sleep in his bed, came running into my arms as i walked in after a couple of very late nights at work.  “Mommy, i miss you.  you’re working too much.  will you please sleep in my bed tonight?”

queue the tears….big huge, crocodile, honking, drippy, goobery tears.

and STILL, my biggest concern was “but i’ve got this team of 10 people at the office that need me!”

and a wise woman said to me “but you’ve got a tiny team of 2 at home who need you more!”

duh!  lightbulb!  eureka!

that was the sign.  it was time to hang up the 10-18 hour consulting days and focus on my most important project…the kiddos!  the irony is that i always wanted to be home with my kids.

i was home alone since age 7 since both my folks worked.  i cooked, cleaned, did grocery shopping, and took care of everything, including forging my parents’ names on the first set of school paperwork…even at that age i knew that i’d be more efficient at handling the school paperwork!  fiercely independent.

yet i envied the kids who had their mommies at home.  i hung out with those mommies a lot.  so when it came time to scale work back, there was a fierce battle between my independent soul and not wanting to rely on anyone else for anything…including my husband!  eeks!  and yet i yearned to be with my kids.  something about the type A, the mba, and the not wanting to rely on anyone else was at war internally.

i sort of realized this last year at my first BlissDom, but it took me almost another full year to actually figure it out.

dense, i know!

i had to give this up to the Big Man.  only he could get me through this.  only he knows the right plan for me.  and it’s hard.  harder than trying-to-sneak-out-of-your-kid’s-bedroom-in-super-stealth-mode-once-he’s-fallen-asleep-hard.

so, here i am heading into my 2nd BlissDom with a different sense of apprehension this year.

now that i’m at home, i’m busier than ever.  in between preschool, tae kwon do, swimming, gymnastics, and t-ball, i try to find time to focus on my new-found passion for furniture refinishing and blogging.

i’m not sure where my blog is headed, but appreciate the fun networking BlissDom offers. heck, maybe i’ll even meet someone else who understands my internal battle!

lookin’ forward to meeting y’all!

 

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