jumping off the cliff

Its taken knee surgery (tore ligaments chasing after my boys on skis!) to get me to finally sit down (one knee up) and finally write my first blog entry ever! I am going to be known to you all as “Crazy working mom” but I have to say that I’m not sure that title fits me anymore. But I’ve been a crazy working mom for so long I guess I’m not sure how else to define myself.

Yeah I did the whole corporate thing. Had my first little one and went back into work with the baby asleep on my shoulder as I finished negotiating a contract that I couldn’t close before my little one showed up! Good lord! What was I thinking?

Then (after my second little one) I was running my company’s business in Asia from a chair in NY. Insane…traveling to 5 countries in 10 days at least five times a year. It got to the point where I would cry the whole way to the airport. I’d catch the car service driver peering into the mirror looking at me like I was nuts dressed in my suit bawling like an idiot. I wonder if he knew that my heart was breaking for my babies back home. Well it was after one of those trips that I realized I was DONE. Simple as that. I jumped off the cliff I’d been standing on for a long time and told my boss that I was done with Asia. Find a replacement and “oh by the way is there something else I can do here once I’ve given my great job away?” Long story but that all ended up working out great since I was no longer imprisoned by “where I was”.

“Jumping off the cliff” has become a theme in my working mom life. I have learned (after many years) that our issue as working women is that we become trapped by whatever situation we are in because we can’t imagine what is outside of the world we are living in. Once you “jump off the cliff”, you literally feel the freedom of flight. You all of a sudden see things that weren’t there before, all the opportunities that would allow you to be a working mom on your terms not theirs.

So as I said earlier, I’m really not a crazy working mom anymore because I’ve jumped off that cliff about 4 times since that momentous trip to Singapore where I realized I was done being a schizophrenic, successful corporate executive by day and homesick (literally sick) after I was done with “my daily show”. I was done with the duplicity and wanted a life where I wasn’t pretending, where I could be a mom who loved and wanted to be with her kids while still putting in a satisfying day’s work. And here I am in that life I have created….a better mother and wife for having “jumped off the cliff” in the first place.

Sure, there are some days (many) where I still struggle with the balance… Like yesterday, leaving work late to pick up my son from soccer, I realize I need to pick up the garlic bread I forgot to order on peapod when I see the check I was supposed to deposit that day is still in my purse and my car is on empty as I pull out of the parking lot because I was running late that morning and didn’t stop for gas!

But I smile when I realize my office is two blocks from home and I can always walk home if I run out of gas. Couldn’t do that from Singapore!

Anyone else jump off that cliff recently? How’s it working out?

Bye for now,

Crazy working mom (sort of)