>Balance

>Maybe you’ve wondered what’s been with me the last month or two. I’ve still been posting here, but not quite as often as I used to.

Well, things have changed a bit in my life. First, Backtalk went on permanent hiatus and then my contract with Parents.com expired. When those contracts ended, Hubs and I took it in stride. I’ve been freelancing long enough to understand the ebb and flow of work. I realized that I’d likely have only a few months of this extra freedom with my children before other opportunities came along.

And I’ve been trying to squeeze every drop of goodness out of this time that I can.

We’ve gone to the zoo and fall festivals and the park and indoor playcenters.

We’ve scheduled playdates and I’ve trailed behind the kids with my camera as they ran on legs that seemed to never grow tired.

I’ve volunteered in Punky’s classroom and chaperoned field trips.

And I’ve been giving Bruiser the one-on-one mommy time he’s been craving. He’s learning that life can be fun even when Punky’s not around to do everything for him.

You understand, don’t you? These opportunities won’t be around forever.

But I’ll be honest- even as I spend hours helping Punky learn to read and playing cars with Bruiser on the rug and transporting children to ballet class and taking hours out of my precious writing time each week to help in the classroom or have lunch with my daughter, I worry.

I worry that in the act of not shortchanging my children, I am shortchanging myself.

Because while I may feel like mother of the year right now, I also have ideas for essays and columns that are lost because I never took a moment to scribble them down. Hilarious posts that never get written. Business contacts that aren’t maintained. Career opportunities that are missed.

My children aren’t getting the short end of the stick right now, but I am. I’m feeling the urge to do work that doesn’t involve children getting stronger and more insistent. Plus, our finances are suffering and I feel that familiar guilt seeping into my mind, because I know that if I worked a little harder at it, I could almost certainly find something to fix them.

It has occurred to me that as a mom, trying to maintain a balance between our children and our selves, whether that involves a career or simple human potential, is difficult. In fact, it’s downright excruciating.

And I know we all run across women who claim that they’ve struck that balance and that their lives are just perfect with their jobs and their children or their decisions to work from home or stay at home entirely. Oh, things just couldn’t be better!

But you know what? I think they’re lying.

Maintaining this balance between realizing my potential as a mom and as a woman is one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done.

And I can’t mess this up. Too much depends on it.

So please pardon the mess. I’ve spent the last year swinging wildly first in one direction, heady with career success. Now, I’ve swung back the other way and I swear I’m giving Donna Reed a run for her money. Let’s hope I can spend these last few months of 2009 finding a place somewhere in the middle.

Here’s to learning the fine art of balance, both in my life and yours.