I wonder how old I was the first time I thought about work/life balance. Did I have kids yet? Was I married? Was I even younger?
If work/life balance is about time and how you spend it, I definitely thought about it in college. I loved the feeling of packing my day full of meetings and studying. I loved coming back to my dorm room feeling like I’d rung every bit of possibility out of the previous 24 hours.
If work/life balance is about values and prioritizing what’s important, I definitely thought (obsessed) about it once I had kids. I uprooted our lives in DC once I got pregnant with Griffin because I knew work would take priority in a way that would leave little room for this baby growing in my belly.
For so long, I was building the life I wanted, so addition felt like the name of the game—adding work experiences, adding kids. Like a scale with work on one side and family on the other, I constantly added weight to one side to balance the other. I stayed home after working on the Hill. I ran for office after being a stay-at-home mom.
Now, I have the work I’ve always dreamed of and am decidedly done having kids. I’m closer to sending kids off to college than ever seemed possible, and suddenly, balance is more about sustaining or even subtraction.
When I was raising little kids or struggling to find work worth doing, a writer I admired recommended sitting down and imagining you 10 or 15 years in the future, giving you a pep talk. You would tell her how overwhelmed you felt, and she would tell you how it would work out. She would tell you how the balance comes even if the work or family looks dramatically different than what you imagined.
I loved those pep talks, and realizing that I am now that woman who was encouraging me fills my eyes with tears and my heart with awe. As I get closer to sending my eldest child off into the world, I may need those pep talks again from Sarah, in her 60s, reporting back from a future full of grown children and approaching retirement.
We will give a lot of specific advice next Thursday night during our The Nuanced Life Live event. We’re going to talk about household chores, work boundaries, and finding time to read. But before we get to the logistics, I wanted to take a step back. I wanted to offer the big picture ebb and flow I’ve felt over the years. I wanted to share that sometimes it’s about a change to routine or a more efficient product. And sometimes it’s about looking back on how far you’ve come or looking forward into the eyes of the future you and hearing her say, “Oh, you’re going to figure this out, and it’s going to be beautiful.”
The one thing we want you to know this week…
We’re less than a week away from The Nuanced Life Live! Join us on May 30th for The Nuanced Life Live to kick off our summer series with a virtual workshop on work-life balance. Get your tickets today! (Members of the Spice Cabinet be sure to check your Premium Account for your discount codes!)
The one thing we made this week we can’t stop thinking about…
Beth exorcised her disappointment in Nikki Haley on Friday’s More to Say, and if our DMs, Facebook group, and email are any indication, a few of you probably need this, too.
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Not me, 6.5 months post-partum and crying at work. It's fine. It's all gonna be fine.
Literally reading this in the early stages of labor with my first child. I went fully freelance as a writer the same month I got pregnant and it’s both beautiful and terrifying. Thank you for this pep talk.❤️ I needed it today!