It's All About Choices

It is all about choices, isn't it?  Life is made up of choices that we all have to make.  To marry or not, to marry this person or that, to have kids or not, to have 2 kids or 4, to work or stay home, to trust or not, to love or not - these are all choices.

Right or wrong, good or bad - we also have to live with the consequences of our choices.

Ever since I became a mother 10 years ago, I have been struggling with this one choice that I made.  Although you can say I don't have much of a choice since we were just starting off our lives and money was important to our survival.  I chose to continue working instead of staying at home with my son. 

Subsequently, every year, I had the opportunity to revisit this choice but I never really did.  At that time, I work from home.  So even though I was working in my bedroom, I could occasionally take breaks and play with my son.

I had 8 years of bliss.  I held a great job that allowed me to hone my skills professionally and yet allowed me more connection and time with my family.  These 8 years saw me raise 3 kids.  Funny enough, during these 8 years, I often lamented about how nice to be able to work in an actual office with actual colleagues.  After 8 years, the company I was working for decided that they would have an actual physical office instead of virtual ones. 

I never knew what hit me.  It might not have been apparent to my colleagues, but my family felt the change.  In a big way.  I struggled every single day trying to cope with the change.  I was like the duck, seemingly calm above the surface, gliding along, but underneath the surface, I was paddling like crazy.

I don't think I ever recovered from it.  I am still paddling but not as crazy as before.  Why?  Because I made some choices to keep some things the way they were and to give up other things.

This choice that I made 10 years ago, I struggle with it every single day.  My babies are growing up and I am not there enough to see it.  I crave to have more time with them, to understand and discover them, to stand by them and comfort them.  I want to stay at home and watch them grow but more than ever, I need to have a constant stream of income. 

I see my friends all around me struggling with that as well.  You might say I should get comfort from that, but I don't.  Everytime I see a Facebook update on how they are struggling with their own problems - trying help kids adjust to school life, friends fall ill because they have no help, not enough time to love their kids - I feel sad.  Like I say, we have to live with the consequences of the choices we make.  They may not be choices that we want to make but choices we have to make - either way, we have to live with the consequences.

I know this seems like a sad and depressing post.  It is meant to be.  However, by recognizing and admitting to the conflicts and dilemmas that I face on a daily basis, by identifying my challenges - I then see how I can overcome them, how I can then make other choices that can get me out of this conflict, this dilemma. 

I know I will, I just need to choose to make that choice.