Finding My Way

I don't write about work here, for good reason, since I don't want to be Dooced. My job sounds much more interesting to others than it actually is and it pays my bills. That is the important bit. I am actually so paranoid about this that when I came over from Diaryland I went back and deleted anything that remotely was about the office (except in the most generic of terms).

Since going back to work I've come to realize a bunch of things. One, my job is not particularly family friendly. This is not the fault of my employer, entirely. I mean not all jobs are family friendly and mine is worse because of my commute. It is just a difficult situation to work out even if I loved my job which at one point I did. But the parts I love have been shrinking and the parts I hate growing every day. At the end of my pregnancy I thought it was my hormones that was making the situation feel so suffocating and I now know that no, it really wasn't.

I feel crushed under the weight of my life sometimes. I need to find a way to balance my work and my family and I know this is something that particularly mothers struggle with every damn day.

I read somewhere that young men plot their careers deliberately and have plans of where they are going. And that young women tend to drift more, grabbing opportunities and going wherever they go. I think that is an overly general statement but I find it interesting because that is precisely what I have done. I fell into my job and while I am good at it I am not sure it is what makes sense for me. It's an odd thing, because I helped J plan his career carefully. And I neglected to do the same for myself.

I am aware that this is such an entitled middle class white woman thing to worry about and that many women would trade with me in a heartbeat to at least have choices. I just hate my choices. I don't want to stay home--not only do I not feel like I would be good at that but I don't want to risk not being able to get a job again (at this level), I don't want my daughter to think that she has to choose between having a family and having a job and my mother in law moved up here to take care of the baby. That is just a lot against that option. And I am not having a lot of luck figuring out how to make this work for me. I am exhausted all of the time. The commute is hard. The job is . . .what it is.

I just feel lost. I don't know how will find my way.