So it took a while, but I've begun a new journey. I'm now officially a personal trainer AND a freelance Creative Director/Writer. I know, HUGE difference between them. Like ginormous. My kids think I'm a doctor. My parents think I'm physical therapist. My husband thinks I'm ... I'll leave that one blank. But I'm fairly settled in my new path. Not sure which direction I'm heading, but as always—I'll keep you posted. 

The other night I was feeling really "writer like". I got one of those crazy urges to mentally purge. So I did. And I think a few of you out there might feel the same. So I thought I'd share. Enjoy!


MY MENTAL PURGE

Sometimes I walk the floors of my house late at night with all the lights off. The moonlight streams in and streetlight illuminates patches of the dark sky. I can see, feel and hear echoes of past years. Late nights up feeding babies. Long nights with feverish toddlers, preschoolers and grade schoolers. Sleepless nights when money wasn't coming in. And lonely nights when mistakes were mine alone to sort through in my head. 

Tonight I started remembering back to my early adulthood days. Back then I never imagined life would be so day-to-day. I was hungry for a corporate career. Determined to climb ladders and leave my mark on the world. I imagined family to mean birthday parties and holiday dinners. Survival was no where in my visions. Yet as I walk the same floors tonight that I've walked for years...stepping on the same glowing floorboards...staring out at the same glistening sky... I find myself wondering when life became a game of survival. Is that when I transitioned from child to adult? The sacrifices I've made in the past decades are inconceivable to my younger self. And now days seem to pass with rapid fire. It feels as if I barrel through the hours holding my breath until that amazing moment arrives when it's time to collapse into bed once again. Regret is not a player. I feel fortunate for what I have. But as amazing as each moment is throughout the day, nothing feels as good as that moment when I can exhale again at night. When did it become like this? 

I walk into my daughter's room. Watch her sleep. Listen to her breathe. Take a mental snapshot of her tangled in a sea of blankets, bears and puppies. Wander into my son's room. He's dreaming. I can see it in his face. I kiss his forehead and blow him wishes for sweeter visions than the past few nights. He smiles in his sleep. I walk quietly into my room. Our big picture windows welcome the moonlight in just enough that I can see my husband is finally sleeping peacefully. It's been weeks of thrashing, flipping and furious mumbling. Feels like someone suddenly turned off survival mode. Life seems to be settling down. 

For now. 

I cannot believe we are into the fifth week of summer!!!! It's amazing how quickly I filled my time! I guess I'm just not someone who can't sit still. My children open their eyes every morning and ask what our plans are before even yawning or stretching. So it makes sense that they got their schbilkies from me. Let's be honest, there aren't many days I don't have "a plan." And that's mainly because since the moment I realized how painfully boring it was to be home with an infant, I started scheduling and double booking plans all day, every day. Rain, snow, or shine I have to leave my house or I revert back to the wretched beast that emerged when I was pregnant. Ask my husband—it's not pretty. 

But I never thought I'd be this busy. 

Ok, get ready. Here's the big news: I'm taking a course to get certified as a personal trainer. It's 20 gazillion times more work than I ever thought. And in order to take the certification test, I needed to get certified in CPR. So I took an online/offline course for that, too. And I'm proud to say I can officially save anyone, or at least I have a certificate that says I can. Well, really I don't even have a certificate. I have a JPEG that was attached to an email I got two hours after my offline class (run by a very sweet 10 year old) ended. (Cut backs, I guess.) It was pretty anticlimactic. At the end of class she just told us a story about how some drunk guy collapsed on the "el" and she thought she'd need to do CPR, but he was just sleeping. When it was awkwardly clear that no was amused or impressed, she waved her hand and said, "you guys are done. Call 1-800-Red Cross if you don't get an email in 2 hours." I was waiting for my plaque. My gold embossed certificate. A handshake. Nope. "Check your inbox" was all I got. Anyway, I digress. 

In order to keep my sanity, and my marriage, I'm also freelancing 20-30 hours a week. It's fun to feel like a grown up working on my freelance stuff and then revert back to college and study for a quiz that's getting graded. I love learning. Especially when it's a subject matter that I give a shit about. My husband is TOTALLY having fun with the "back to school" notion of my journey. He invited me to back to his dorm room after his pretend frat party the other night, but said only if I get an A on my quiz. I nearly hid my head in shame when he asked me what grade I got and reported it was a B. Guess he's gonna have to take someone else home with him after the party. 

Today's my first day.

Of my new life.

The life I've been waiting for ... for 7 1/2 years.

Today both kids got on the bus and were gone for the WHOLE DAY.

No childcare.

No seemingly sane but secretly off-their-rocker, 25-50 yr old, not quite English-speaking, woman claiming to love my kids but really seeing me as a money tree either.

I was finally home to send them off.

And now I'm eagerly waiting for them to come back.

My face will finally be the face that they see when they get off the bus.

I have ice cold water and snacks waiting for them. (Cuz it's hotter than hell out here. Wasn't it just 60 degrees? WTF?)

And I can't wait to hear all their little stories. The ones about the girls who said "the s word" (shut up, stupid, shit, it's all the same). And the one about the grown up who wrongfully accused "him" of slathering someone else with goo, when CLEARLY he was innocent.

I'm also sure it will take all of five minutes for the breakdowns to happen. Because I'm home. And for the begging to stay home tomorrow to happen. Because I'm home.

Which is why I put my new plan into action today, right after they both stepped onto that stupid bus without even saying good-bye to me. Damn that "bus councelor" who wouldn't let me on the bus when clearly my kids were aching for a hug from me.

Good thing my new life started today. I mean my new plan. Wait, yeah...I mean both.

So, it happened. I got ancy. Okay, I'll be honest, I actually got envious of a mom who said she worked. So there you have it, I do want to work. The small insecurity deep down inside me that was terrified this might not be a hiatus but a permanent life change, has finally been squashed. Here are all the signs that have led me to the re-confirmation of my working mom identity:

1. It's taking less and less time for my kids to drive me nuts. 
Every day it creeps up earlier and earlier. In fact, the other day, it only took 5 minutes. And man are my kids cute. But my husband's super handsome too, and sometimes all it takes is him chewing to drive me up the wall. So cuteness isn't helping the bat-shit-crazy factor. Nope. The only solution is the daily escape. 

2. I'm not good at slave status. 
I've never been very domestically successful. Not having a job means I'm supposed to keep the house neat AND clean (yes, there's a huge difference), dishes are suddenly my job, laundry (fold and put away), etc. I'm not good at these things. I can do them. But waking up every morning and knowing it's all my job sucks HUGE donkey balls. I resign. I quit. Blech. 

3. Listening to other people talk about work has become interesting. 
Let's be honest, NO ONE'S WORK STORIES ARE INTERESTING. However, as a friend, you listen, give advice or offer up thoughts. But lately, I actually desire to hear people's work situations. WHAT???? That's crazy. I know. Insane. I'll even admit, I'm fascinated. Rivetted. Especially in regards to the mom's who are working from home. OMG. I am a loser. 

4. I hate not making money. HATE. HATE. HATE it. I've come to realize that my husband could make 10 gagillion dollars a year, and I'd still want my own checking account with money that EYE made. My checking account is dwindling fast. And I find myself rationing food to my kids (they don't need a whole bowl of soup...). Or sacrificing my Starbucks (it's happening). Or...get this...I ate old food. I actually thought in my mind that it would save me from using any more money in my account. Which is incredibly stupid because it's not like my husband's not working. He is. It just pains me to know my account will not be replenished in 15 days by money that I contributed. 

5. I started peeking at job boards. Shhhhh...don't tell anyone. 

So I guess it's time to figure out what I want to do when I grow up. I have a few ideas. And I getting super excited to start the ball rolling. 

I have this fear of standing still. Everywhere I go, and everything I do, I'm constantly making sure I'm not just standing still. I hate waiting in lines. I hate traffic. And I hate when I look back a year prior and I haven't made any progress. I literally despise the feeling of being stagnant. On the flipside, I love the feeling of moving forward. Ugh, but I'm terrified of change. It's such a conundrum. It's so scary to do something new. I remember as a kid, one day I stopped and realized that the day would come when school would end for good. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I realized that one day I might stop learning. It was a horrible feeling. Now as an adult, I remind myself every New Year's Eve that next year should be different somehow—improved. I think about what I want to learn. What do I want to do differently. This year, New Years came in May. And I have a big goal in mind.

I've been experiencing anxiety attacks again. Not the kind that make me wish I was hauling my ass to the city in unspeakable weather. More like the kind that makes me want to send out my resume RIGHT F'ING NOW or burn it (even though it's electronic) and resign from corporate life forever. They're happening at times like when I've driven the same route 6 times in a day and I still have to do it 2 more times. Or when I end up in a local Fortune 500 parking lot, and I can smell the 50-page powerpoint decks from there. I think I figured out what this means for my future:

1. I need SOME variety. Some people do the same thing every day and are comfortable living that way. My son is a perfect example. Vere from his routine and life stops. The brakes go on immediately and the wheels come off—all at once. Total coo koo time for everyone around him. My daughter is the opposite. If her day is exactly the same, she starts pulling out clothes that demand a different activity. If we're going to the park for the third day, she gets dressed in a ball gown. I think I'm somewhere in the middle. I like when my weeks are colorful. But man do I love my Starbucks routine. 

2. I cannot feel trapped. I cannot express the level of suck you experience when sitting in a mandatory (yet useless to you) meeting while opportunity just keeps beeping on your phone. And in the same vein, if I go more than 2 days without a minute away from my children I start to claw at my husband like a caged animal. Freedom is definitely the cost of entry for whatever I do next. Just typing this section is making my deoderant malfunction. 

3. I need to work with nice people. If I have to sit quietly and listen to one more person get their rocks off by demeaning a subordinate, I might actually become like that big dude in Fantastic 4. Big fist and just BAM. Squash 'em like a bug. Companies seem to be so concerned with how employees treat their superiors. There are all kinds of written and unspoken rules around that topic. But there's no "you can't be an asshole to the people who support you" rule. Yup, getting twitchy again. It matters. 

Alright, so I need to do all kinds of fun things (after I get my coffee) and have tons of flexibility while working with nice people. Looks like I'm gonna be unemployed for a while longer. 

There have been a few lessons I've learned in my life that I think about every day, and I plan on using to help me figure out my next move. Most of them I absolutely hated learning. But like my 10-year-old comforter that I refuse to give up, I wrap myself in these learnings every day and take comfort in the shreds that still apply to my life. So I thought I'd share. 

1. No matter how badly you want to do something, it's never okay to hurt someone's feelings.

2. You can never go back to yesterday and do what needed to be done for today.
This actually got me off academic probation in college, and as an adult I simply applied it to when I needed to work at night. (You can always watch "it" on DVR, but you can't go back and make that deadline.) Okay, fine. Sometimes I just wake up early instead. Seriously, Blacklist is a little too good to put off. 

3. You can choose your friends, not your family.
So find a way to accept your family for who they are. As for your friends, keep shopping.

4. It's not a home until there's stuff on the walls.
Ironically, my walls have "stuff" that's been drawn on as well as purchased and placed on. I treasure them both. 

5.  No one will watch out for you, except you.
It's a lonely lesson to accept at first. But extremely empowering once you accept it. 

6. There is no risk that comes without crazy amounts of mental torture.
And no, you can't prepare yourself for it. Cuz when you find yourself rocking in the corner, I promise it won't be from whatever you imagined it would be. Oh, maybe that was just me.  

7. Everyone needs a mental vacation.
Sometimes that means hiding from my kids in my closet. Other times it means you know, quitting my job and writing a blog until I figure out my next move. :)

8. You don't always have to follow the rules.
In fact, life is more fun when you live just outside of them. 

9. People are born as liars, cheats, and thieves.
As infants we convince you we need to be held in order to sleep. As toddlers we pretend we can't talk or didn't know the diaper NEEDED to stay on. As kids we flat out lie ALL THE TIME. As teenagers, we hide everything and steal stupid stuff like a carabineer, when we don't even rock climb. As adults, we tell ourselves, "it's for his/her own good" or we just don't even realize we lie anymore. Like when my husband looks me in the face and says, "No I didn't throw that out." ;/

10. I don't always to have 10 things. See number 8.