InnerTeub

I’ve been on pick up and drop off duty for my stepdaughter’s camp. 8am we leave, drive her there, I get back to my desk by about 9:15, then I leave again at 3, pick her up, and get back to work around 4:15. The days where she has a performance at lunch (performing arts camps, I tell ya), I get back at my desk at 9:15, then leave again at 12, to return at 1:30…to leave again at 3.

It interrupts the day. Of course it does. My bosses are flexible, understanding, and luckily I can work well into the evening and early in the morning to get it all done (and can – and did- take conference calls in parking lots throughout the city). It is not a problem, but it is A Thing.

But here is what I didn’t expect, about this whole motherhood (caveated as my experience is, what with her not being my kid): I did not expect to be so unconcerned about the hassle. I did not expect to be…”ok” is not the word, I guess I did not expect to be… fulfilled? by driving 50 minutes round trip to see her on stage for under 5 minutes. It’s a great 5 minutes, and her smile at seeing me having made it there in time is huge and infectious, and for as much as I felt rushed and harried and behind the work power curve that day, seeing her perform is the only thing about that random Tuesday that I actually remember.

I did not expect priorities to shift so easily.

One of my coworkers is a good friend, and I can sense he is somewhat disappointed in me, for my tearing focus away. We used to be on the same career path, and maybe we still are, but the difference now is I don’t tunnel vision my work day and stay late without question. I’m getting the work done, and yet I feel like I’m slacking, and while I don’t feel sorry, necessarily, I do feel apologetic.

Maybe my friend doesn’t notice, maybe I’m projecting my own uneasiness onto him. But I’m new at this – I half feel like a failure for wanting to go to a middle school talent show in the middle of the day – even when that was the best part of the day.

I read a twitter update the other day that said: “Whenever I see a blog post written about following your dreams, I immediately look for the single guy with no kids who wrote it.” I laughed, hard, because: I mean, yeah. But you know… I’m currently living a dream I didn’t even know I was having, and oh, how lucky I am, to be a part of this family, and how lucky I am, to have a job that lets me participate in it. And I have to say, I don’t know how real mothers do it – not the daily managing of the tasks around them, though that’s impressive, but the coming to peace with the expectations around them – expectations the world has for them, and that they have for themselves.