I Should Be Working, But...

I joked last night on Facebook that this is the siren song of the self-employed. There is always something somewhere you could/should be doing instead of making a phone call or updating your blog or checking Facebook. It's like always having a paper that is due pretty soon. Then, you turn in that paper and have about ten seconds to feel that sweet rush of relief, only to have about ten more due pretty soon. : )

Don't get me wrong: I'm not complaining. I feel lucky to have enough projects that I am constantly feeling like I should be working. I feel lucky that on a day when I have a miserable cold, I can work in a winter hat with a blanket wrapped around me and can crank the heat as high as I want to without e-mailing a maintenance person (who may or may not comply). (P.S. Don't tell my husband.) Granted, there are weeks where you would see what I'm working on (I spent an entire week--literally--checking numbers on spreadsheets) and think "You could not pay me enough to do that all week!" On the other hand, maybe you would think: "Heck, I'd check numbers on spreadsheets all day every day if it meant working from home in my pajamas in front of the TV." (It's worth noting that the spreadsheet job was the only one in recent memory that enabled me to "watch" TV while I worked, and I was really only listening to the TV since my eyes were trained on the spreadsheets.)

When I was thinking of making the jump to full-time freelance, a friend who had made a similar move the month before said, "Trust me: You will wonder how you ever did it all before." This is true. I don't know how I ever drove two hours a day or how I got home from work at 5 only to work again at 7 (until 10) without losing my mind. Or how I managed to juggle all the after-school activities that typically started not long after I arrived home. I don't know how I ever thought I could leave this house at 6:45 each morning (which I never actually managed and which made me late every day) when there are children to be dressed and hair to be done. I mean, whatever, people everywhere do it, and possibly I am lazy when it comes to getting up early (as evidenced by the days I'll get up at 6:55 to start a 7:00 shift), but what I'm getting at here is that I feel lucky to have this opportunity. Seeing my kids off to school every morning and picking them up again every afternoon (except Wednesday, which still belongs to Grandpa) feels like an incredibly precious gift. Being able to be involved in homework and reading assignments and playdates is a dream comes true. (You know, except when it's not.)

The funny thing is that even though I feel like this should have somehow worked out to more *time*, it really hasn't. The hours I used to spend driving, I now spend with the girls. The hours I used to spend working, I still spend working. There is never a good time (save Wednesday morning) to run errands. And all the daytime opportunities to run that I thought I'd have haven't really materialized. My house isn't in (much) better shape than it used to be. The dog gets fewer walks. Plus, the concept of working from home full-time is so mystifying that I am now asked to chaperone a field trip on a Friday or fill in last-minute as mystery reader (granted, my shifted freelance work is really not typical, so I get why people think I should be able to just work at a different time so I can do these other fun things). Of course, that last-minute mystery reader thing? I was actually able to end my shift 30 minutes early so I *could* fill in.

So it's not perfect, and I'm still working on finding the right balance of work time and me time and mommy time. But honestly, I'm pretty sure that every mom in America--whether they work outside the home or inside the home--is searching for that balance.