Pieces of Me

With all due respect -- and in my opinion, not much is due -- to Ashlee Simpson, I'm going to borrow your song title for just a few minutes. My last post to this blog site was in February; I was bemoaning the frigid temperatures and our local school system's inability to make a wise decision. It is now August. I could bemoan the torrid temps and our local school system's continued inability to make a wise decision. Instead I will address the reason for my internet absence. It starts and ends with the job I began in March.

After a nine-year maternity leave and a six-month job search, I started a sales and marketing position with a wonderful company called Vervago. Started by two Stanford-educated professors, Vervago works with companies who value their intellectual capital and are open to learning ideas for using that capital to their competitive advantage. The average IQ for a Vervago employee is somewhere in the Mensa range. Just as I suspect Princeton gave extra weight to my fastball / change up combination when considering my application for admission, the Vervago executive team must have seen something in my resume that filled some kind of hiring quota. It is a supportive, enriching, intellectually challenging and professionally rewarding place to work. My colleagues are genuinely appreciative of the work I do, and are more than understanding of my other roles: mother and wife. But because I know my IQ would pull down the company average, and because I plan to remain with this company for the duration of my professional career, I am in full rookie mode, four months into the job. Can I take a customer call at 9 PM eastern time? Of course! Chat with China while on vacation? Absolutely. Drive you to the airport? Let me get the car washed first.

My inability to rest on any professional laurels means my job does take a big chunk out of my life. And it should. Although I swore I would manage a family-work-life balance, I realize now that it will take more than a fiscal quarter to discover just what that balance looks like. At times I envision myself as made of Play Doh, and with every request for my time, I yank off another hunk and hand it over. My husband would like my help reviewing his resume: hand over a hunk. My son needs someone to catch his fastball: here's another hunk. My daughter would like me to co-star in the play she has created: hunk. A well-meaning friend wonders when we can do lunch: hunk. My Mom wants to know when is a good time to call: hunk. I wish I could say that all of this bodily redistribution has resulted in slimmer hips and more shapely thighs. But the resulting feelings of inadequacy leave only a thicker swath of gray hair in its wake. That reminds me. I need to set my next hair appointment: it will require another hunk.

I'm one of the lucky ones. I work from home, and have a supportive, capable and willing husband who not only works from home himself, but hasn't allowed his new passion for cooking get in the way of his love of doing laundry. Single mothers without support? They must be completely hunked out.

This is not a complaint, but a plea to my friends and family who have noticed a change in my communication frequency and my ability to remember details: forgive me. Forgive the dates I got wrong, the time zone calculations I screwed up, the birthdays I passed over. Please hang in there with me. Things will get better. I continue to make small changes in an effort to find the balance I seek. Already I swapped running for more time consuming trips to the gym. I am more errand efficient, even if that means taking the kids with me to Trader Joe's on the way home from a birthday party. Nothing says "Family Time" like having your daughter hold your hand during a brow wax. I can't seem to trim down to two book clubs, and I still have a terrible time responding 'no' to a friend's request for a get together, but I did just get around to reading another friend's short stories, which have been gathering digital dust in my email inbox since mid-June. It's a baby step, but it's progress. In the meantime, I will continue to spread little pieces of me around, hoping they have a positive affect on someone else's life balance. Now that's hunk worthy.