I had an AH-HA moment yesterday. I was surprised it really took that long to get to that point. I have been a working mom for about 15 years. I know that doesn’t seem like a long time, but it’s been a long road. When you factor in that it hasn’t just been work and home. It was fulltime work monday thru friday, full-time school monday thru friday, three kids under 10, and a husband for the first 2 years. Then, it was work fulltime with overtime, a move to another state, starting over in a new job, making new friends, and a husband. ( I didn’t get a new husband, but he’s been a handful to maintain). Then, in years 5-6 it was work fulltime, back to school for a degree full-time, a husband, and a pregnancy. Had the baby on a Friday and went back to school on Tuesday.
At the time, I thought it was determination. Sitting on my thinking chair this morning, preparing to write my first blog ever, I realized it was stupidity. I had massively high blood pressure that was uncontrolled and could have had a seizure at anytime. Thankfully, I was attending a nursing school transitioning from LPN or LVN to RN. So, I was surrounded by nursing instructors and future nurses. Which, reflecting now is even more scary. Those nurses were no where capable of caring for me if something had happened. They would have freaked out! But, I’m sure it would have made an excellent story.
Then came the move back to Florida ( which we instantly regretted), a new job, a mother-in-law with Alzheimer’s, a grand baby, and the bachelor’s degree program. Again, fulltime school, work, kids, mother-in-law, drama, and a husband… My family all joked that I was going to get pregnant because that seemed to be how I roll. I did not find that funny one bit. I just said my son was having the baby this time.
Somewhere in all that mess, we moved back to Georgia. It was much-needed. I took a management position and that is when it all went to HELL. My work-life became unbalanced like a see-saw with a kindergartener on one side and a high school kid on the other. My life was starting to look like a loony tunes episode. There was me sitting unsuspectingly on the see-saw and a giant boulder was about to fall off a cliff and launch me into the atmosphere. Yep, zero gravity, no air and a hell of a lot of darkness.
Midlife Ahead 