work-life balance – 30 Before 30

I’m on an adventure with my husband and kid, and it’s been lovely in many ways. In other ways, it’s tougher than I anticipated. It’s not a vacation: it’s a working vacation. For me, that meant cordoning off days in which I would be available and for Brandon, that meant doing his best to keep up a full-time gig on the road. In Mexico. With a two-year-old.

We’ve had a blast, but he’s tough to wrap my head around. Stressed, overwhelmed, sick. I don’t know whether to be supportive or tell him to “snap out of it.” I’ve lately been leaning toward the latter as I spend hours entertaining our toddler while he sends “just one more email.”

I’m trying to be the person I read about the other week – the person who “doesn’t give a fuck.” The person who doesn’t let things stress them out, shrugs and lets things roll off her back. It’s hard when my toddler throws a tantrum in a restaurant in Oaxaca and I’m thinking about how we’re “those” tourists; giving the U.S. a bad name and what is wrong with us letting our 2-year-old watch “Monsters, Inc” at the table so we can all eat in some semblance of peace? The obnoxious people who buy the spinny toy at the market so the kid will stop screaming? This is not the mother I want to be, and yet, I am. And I do give a fuck.

This trip has left me with a lot on my mind, which is kind of the opposite of where I’d hoped to be. I’ve removed toxic and unreciprocated friendships from my life this year and have begun to build new ones – particularly with those who share my values, my passion, and my interest in connecting (although, Dione, I am TERRIBLE at being present lately).

Politics, per usual, is garbage, although I’m excited to see the field of candidates of my party growing like a field of tulips in a desert. My mystery side project is heating up and nearing its end; a project I’ve been working on for nearly a year and am excited to complete. I turn 32 in a few months and I am perilously close to missing certain goals, but I’m making new ones, so it’s okay. I’m considering hip hop classes and improv workshops. I want to rediscover me outside of my kid. For his sake and my own.

Nevertheless, I know I’ve got a good one. He is kind, he is smart and playful. He’s funny. He has all my bad habits: entitlement (UCK), a love of television (working on it–my, how quickly it happens), a penchant for cursing (today, a ball almost rolled into a sewer and he shouted, “JESUS CHRIST!”–not the best idea in a heavily Catholic country). He also has some of my strengths: perseverance, goofiness, deep love, a strong will. Other traits not inherited by me include coordination, athleticism, and a very broad palette (Brandon said the other day, “He either has an extremely refined palette or no tastebuds at all.” He later tried to eat the helmet off a Lego man). Despite my best efforts, he is spoiled. Not indulged at every turn but spoiled by our lifestyle: dinners out, trips, treats. It can simply be difficult to avoid privilege when your parents have it. The one plus I’ll put in our category is that we are passionate about activism and diversity. Not only does he come to every march and protest, Cam understands, at barely two years old, that he is not alone on this planet. Today, he played with a little girl who spoke not a lick of English, and they became friends, teaching each other “hello” and “thank you” in their own languages. He waves at everyone and says “Adios” and “Gracias.” He hears another language surround him, and he plays at home with people on the playground who don’t necessarily look like him. His best friend has two mommies. We are raising a good kid. A real good kid.

Being a mom is a constantly-evolving, yet rewarding, challenge. Being a woman with a career, particularly one that is self-made, is also an evolving rewarding challenge. Being a wife lately has, frankly, been mostly a challenge. But such is the tide of ebbs and flows of a relationship. You love hard and you weather the storm.

My focus this year is on personal growth. Feeling better, doing better, staying active for me, getting back to my core desire of a work-life balance (versus what’s now a work-work-work balance), and being a better mom to my kid. Part of that means not being swallowed whole by him. And that’s been the most difficult thing of all.

This year, a couple major life changes have happened: I started my own business and I got pregnant.

The welcoming of a child into our family is becoming more and more real. I can feel his kicks, his happy reactions, and I cry when I see the sweet ultrasounds or hear his heartbeats. I love seeing him thrash his tiny fists and get bigger each time we see the doctor. Our family is going to be so full with love, and even the animals are showing how attached they are to him already (Alice protects me even more now; MonkeyBaby keeps my tummy warm).

But there is another side to me, an important side that I refuse to diminish. A side I am extremely, fundamentally proud of and want to scream about from the rooftops. It’s the side that is thriving in spite of the physical and mental challenges my body is going through, and a side I desperately want to talk about more.

I am the president of my own company. I have become and independent contractor and been FT gainfully employed for the past 3 of 4 months – and am scheduled to in fact add clients to that roster, without losing the first, over the upcoming two months (one of which is PT permanent, from home, and at my full hourly rate). I am already looking toward expansion, and at minimum, an offsite personal workspace. I’ve navigated accountants and contracts and business licenses and pitches and invoicing. I have my own LLC, operating as an S-Corp, and I actually know what that means. I’m making more money than I ever have, and by a pretty large margin.

There is a terror inside of me that gainful employment won’t always come at the rate it is now. I expect a softer summer. There is a seasonality and a market trend to my industry, and I’m smart enough to know the pitfalls of being independent. Taxes are a sword in the heart. Figuring out healthcare isn’t easy, and I’ve now added the monthly cost of business insurance.

But the conversations I have about these things are few and far between. The fears and the proud moments and the strides in an unfathomably short period of time are falling by the wayside as every conversation turns to the responsibility I will add to my life in four months. My friends wonder why I’m not spending hours on Pinterest, browsing through costumes I’ll eventually dress the baby in for Halloween. It’s because I’m trying to welcome everything in its time. And right now, I’m excited about the incredible achievements I’ve made in my career… there’s still time to be similarly excited about this baby.

I love this baby, and I’m thrilled to be a mom. I’m terrified of what that will come with as well. I’m afraid of the expense, afraid of the sleeplessness, afraid of the selflessness. But I’m trying to do the thing I’ve never been good at and slow down to smell the roses around me. However long this lasts, my career is as good as it’s ever been right now. It may not be forever – and it may not be a choice forever. But it’s good right now, I’m busier than I ever have been with work, and I want to tell the world.

I love talking about the baby – all the weird things pregnancy brings, musing about the kind of person he’ll be, thinking about how we’ll spend holidays together as a family at home, melding traditions together. But I’m more than a vessel for a child, and in four months, I will be more than a mother. I will be a woman. A flawed, scared, sometimes selfish woman who’s balancing a shit-ton of stuff.

I will never be that mom who lives exclusively for her child. I want to raise him to be happy, thriving, independent, and self-sufficient. I want him to know that women are more than aides to men. I will never question my choice to continue working, as that’s a part of me I don’t want to lose. Trust me – I will never look down on a mom who chooses to make her whole life about raising a family, as that’s as noble a task as I can imagine and one of the most selfless choices a person can make. It’s just simply not mine.

I hope that after a couple years, I can start to once again have the conversations about the well-roundedness of life and how our child is now an important part of it (but not all of it). Because I’m fucking proud of myself right now, and I think that’s worth something. I just wish it was worth something to everyone else.