Embrace the Messy Complicated You

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Embrace the Messy Complicated You

Now is the time.

Now is the time to embrace the messy, complicated you and to dive head first into indulgent self-love.

What I’ve learned most in the last four years is that it is never too late for almost anything, but that big life changes bring forth a set of unruly complexities and dichotomies—pulling us back and forth in between the old and the new.

I’m one of those people that doesn’t like stagnancy. The dichotomy of that truth, however, is that I also don’t like change—that I can’t control!

It’s a messy part of me that I must embrace. I need to be fueled with change that I control because for me, if I’m stagnant; I’m not growing, evolving, learning. This is a bit of a conundrum though to balance those emotions and needs with also feeling grateful for the here and now. Difficult truth. Difficult lesson.

Throw in that I want my life to be meaningful in how my days are spent and with the contributions I make to the universe; the change I must enact for greater growth get muddier and muddier.

Transitions for women, I believe, are notably challenging because we are often confronted with societal expectations that are not assigned to men. When I had my first child fifteen-plus years ago, I was fortunate enough to still satiate my ambitions outside of the home with a career I built with baby-on-hip, or rather, baby-on-boob.

I loved it. It was perfectly balanced for many years. Intellectually stimulated, challenged and fulfilled; I was able to build experience and a career in leadership throughout even the challenges of getting pregnant and giving birth to a medically fragile child. How amazing was that?

Life progressed, change was necessary, and my focus became contained inside the walls of my home in trying to conceive, stay pregnant, and then (after great loss, grief and recovery) relishing in every second I could spend with my children.

Becoming a full-time stay-at-home mom became my full-time job, my project of greatest meaning. Social media “memories” remind me frequently of those days that began with a full breakfast spread that segued into house cleaning, playdates, culture enriching child activities, volunteering, and a bountiful abundance of yoga pant wearing hours filled with massages, brunches, shopping, writing, painting, reading, coffee dates, etc.

The dichotomy not captured on social media was the growing feelings of boredom, frustration, displacement, isolation and obsessive nature of jumping from one project to another (let’s buy a new house, let me repaint the house, redesign the living room, revamp the gardens, become an obsessive runner & lose 50 pounds, write another book, get a Ph.D….).

Let me completely obsess over your career because I miss mine.

It was time for a change, of my own making.

Knowing the path that I had forged was one that was not retraceable, I focused on writing a new chapter that was decided on—well, nothing but—fate.

Having nothing to lose but everything to gain on a new search for meaning (so-to-speak), I put myself out in the universe (i.e. LinkedIn) and waited—for what I assumed would be six months but turned out to be only a few hours.

Lesson learned! You are more qualified than you think (even after spending the last few years changing diapers and organizing mimosa playdates, while only dabbling in consulting work), and you should not take the first offer from the first person…. even if you are consumed with excitement and desperation for change and are enthralled by the attention you profile is receiving in less than a week’s time.

In these situations, it’s best to take a step back and phone a friend, join a book club, finish that Ph.D…. or in my instance when I received the recruitment call… pick the paintbrush back up from the paint bucket and finish painting the house.

You are worth the right offer, the right organization, the right position.

Remember self-love. Remember the woman you were before you were defined by motherhood. Remember your talents. Remember your value.

And if you are so blessed, remember your choices.

Because mom-guilt is real, and it is even more real as a working mom.

Fast forward almost two years, and here I sit, embracing the messy me.

I’m now in a job that I love and one that better fits my years of experience. I’m still just as hungry for intellectual stimulation, challenge and ‘self-imposed’ change. I still love my family endlessly, but in there lies the difficult dichotomy that I have less time with them now than I did before I worked outside of the home. A greater complexity is often broached that, in the absence of intellectually challenging and engaging work, there is a risk of questioning if ‘this’ is all “worth it.”

Much of those questions are fed from the outside—society, friends, family, a spouse whom may feel your place is best at home or in the school car line. Much of that doubt also comes from your own mommy-guilt, and those moments where you are literally ordering an urgent school item on Amazon Prime Now with just a hope and a prayer it will arrive in time. Or when you’ve missed a school party because you had an important meeting scheduled on your calendar (and you don’t dare reveal your mom-card weakness in the workplace).

But you are a mom—a feeling mother and maybe a mother/woman hovering on middle age with one foot in a mommy-playdate world and another foot in a college-sendoff world. Or like me, with an entire middle placed firmly in the “mom of a special needs forever child” world.

The mommy-guilt can be intense. The days turn into months and the months turn into years. Your children are growing fast and becoming independent of you. You wonder day in and day out if your indulgences to have a career come at the cost of raising the best humans possible.

Maybe you are like me and you find yourself in bouts of longing for more time with them and in desperation you are spending a weekend at the art store in a newly purchased NASA t-shirt buying paint supplies and candy all to pander to your six-year-old with hopes that he will a) still find you relatable and b) still want to spend time with you—holding back the emotions that this little boy is the little miracle that you have hovered over with supermom protective energy since his conception after losing a child before him.

But you are also more than a mom—the dichotomy! You are also an accomplished woman with greater desires, ambitions and interests. You may even have talents outside of motherhood—gasp!

The messy me. The messy part of me that knows I need more from my days than any scenario but having a career can provide. The messy me that really loved jumping on a plane and flying 8,600 miles to a new-to-me world of the Middle East. The messy part of me that loves the mundane part of my job as much as the creative or as much as the most challenging. The part of me that—sure, misses yoga pants (wearing them now) and having endless time for personal and parent development—but that also really and truly needs the stimulation and collaboration that I receive from my current job.