As women we're blindsided with the presumption that (thanks to the women's movement) we can now "have it all."  I thought so.  And I went about crafting a life that incorporated everything. I founded and grew my own skin-care business, got married, bought a house, (and a dog) and gave birth to 4 children. I had it all.  For a while there I couldn't figure out why I was so tired and sad.

It was not uncommon for me to bring an 8 week old baby into the office, and nurse him while returning emails.  I'd leave my older children with a nanny, and run off to form (aka raise) my employees, only to come home and wish my real children would leave me alone.  It was the same on vacations.  I'd wish my kids would just leave me alone.   I didn't enjoy them.  I had them.  I loved them.  But I didn't enjoy them.

I wondered why I was sad.  I was in fact depressed, but didn't realize it.  Now I know why.  But I didn’t’ know why then.  As the depression persisted, I began to look at it.   It didn't take me long to figure it out once I was willing to face it.   I was depressed because I could do it all, but I couldn't have it all.

Once I saw it for what it was, I was able to see what I needed to do.  And what I needed to do was major.  I had to give up some things.  Something was rumbling deep within me, calling me onward, away from the little company I’d built from the ground up.  There was to be no more formulating new skin care products. There was to be no more body butter for me. 

It was October 30, 2012 when it hit me. That day something inside me shifted and I knew that I could no longer run my company.  The joy had been gone for a long time, but until that day, I didn’t know that I could just let it all go. And simple as that, I did.  I let go of my life’s work and never looked back.  I have no regrets.

Because, at the end of the day, I needed to want my children. My children needed me to revel in them and help them to grow. And it just wasn’t going to happen while all my energy was channeling into a corporation instead.

Am I saying that women shouldn’t work and have kids? No!   I am saying that in society's push for women to do and be more, the bottom has dropped out of family.  And I didn’t want the bottom to drop out of my family. 

Every day I feel the drive to do more, to be more, to become and to have an identity outside of my role as mother.   At the same time I love to cuddle and squidge my children. I love to sit and read a story and listen to their little baby words.  I feel fulfilled when I engage in intellectual conversation with my older children.  But….when both sides of me are tugged at with force, the result is that both are diluted and no one gets the best of me.

I reach daily to find a balance I feel must exist. I don't always find it.   I guess that there is a little bucking up in life that just has to happen. But, in the long run, I have not given up on the idea that there must exist a way to be feminine nurturer and queen of the domestic domain, while still feeding our calling as people. 

I did what I had to do back in 2012.  My little skin care company was sold into the hands of another who had the focus and energy to lead it.  And I walked purposefully into the background to explore the experience of being fully present to my family; the good, the bad and the ugly.  And there is lots of ugly that comes with the gig, that’s for sure.

And do I believe that I can cultivate career in a vibrant and fulfilling way, while being a vibrant and fulfilled parent?  I hope so.  And I believe so; in a modified way.  And I stretch for that here and now as I reach out in new and different ways, around my family, in the gaps where I am not called to be mother.

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