i work hard

I work hard. i'm too smart not to, and i'm not smart enough not to. this year has been a tremendous year. and like how i've described how it's like to have 3 boys, i say that the highs are high and the lows are low. we have a beautiful baby boy and i'm turning 40. 2 tremendous milestones and there's a bittersweet sadness to it all.

this is my last tuesday of maternity leave before i go back to work this thursday. i've been desperately trying to cram everything in. archiving all the boys' art projects, and also finishing up everyone's baby book. i spent all weekend with brian being gone in scottsdale working on their baby books, which was probably not the best time to do so, considering how emotional i am going back to work and reflecting on this magical summer.

i don't feel guilty when i think about going back to work. I feel sad. And I feel this way for many reasons. i spent my 20s sprinting up the corporate ladder and making the best decision of my life marrying brian. my ambition was to go hard and professional achieve as much as possible. I definitely wanted to be Director before 30, and wanted more, more, more. There was little differentiation between my social life and professional life, so balance wasn't really factor. And then I got married.

Needing to be home for dinner, having a life partner, traveling together before kids became a priority. My 30s were about living a life as a couple, to start a family. It wasn't about me anymore. It was about them...our future, our kids. Professionally I wasn't going to make it to VP at Sephora, as frustrating as that was...and bigger priorities started coming into play. Being close to home, to be closer to the boys and b's practice started to factor in. Deciding to take the role at Care.com, working hard to gain traction, establish myself in a new company, make a difference and get promoted to VP to set myself up for future consulting gigs was the professional focus. Taking a full-time job with good maternity benefits was also a factor and a significant one, since the decision to have more kids was more of an impromptu situation, but getting through another pregnancy cleary became a priority. And now there are 3 boys, and i'm turning 40.

so now what. i don't really care about proving myself professionally anymore. I'm not gunning for a CMO role, a larger team, or more responsibility. More money, maybe - but is that really the point? I don't want to dismiss the impact that money has in our household, or livelihood, but then as i grow up - time has become much more valuable than money. so then what.

if i work so hard - what should i be working for. to earn money to pay for opportunities for my kids to have their extracurricular activities? for vacations? should i work with my children to help them become better citizens of the world? who gets to benefit from what kind of work i should do? should i work for the practice to see if that would help our household? Time is the most valuable asset to me now. How am i going to make the best of it?