How Did I Get Here?

As I’m driving into the city, frantically running around from open house to a showing to a lease signing, stopping at Target in between for toilet paper and the 3-ring binder somebody needs for school, I ask myself this question.  How did I get here?

I return a phone call from a suburban mom with a land line, while shuffling my purse and coffee, speeding down I 94.  She wants me to volunteer at a race so the girls Cross Country team can earn $900.  Did I get the email, she wants to know?  Is my daughter available and even if she isn’t, am I?  I stammer out my apology on her voicemail - no, my overextended kid isn’t available, no, I am not available either, I work a lot of Sundays.  I have become the mom that used to annoy me, as I rolled through the “volunteer list” of whatever organization I was in charge of at the time.  How did I get here?

When I drive past a park, I see the moms there, with strollers and backpacks and homemade sandwiches.  I miss the days when Annie’s Organic Cheddar bunnies and dried apricots were the perfect snack for a kid and they devoured it without complaint. When the days were filled with library visits and the Como Zoo and going to downtown Minneapolis just to look at the buildings and there was no way I was going to miss somebody’s first steps or a chance to write down the cute things they said along the way.  I carried a fucking notebook in order to document and remember it all!!  How did I get here?

My teenager is home sick today.  She has a terrible cold and I brought her orange juice and she was so grateful.  Then, I listed off the foods available in the house, hugged her and left.  I used to stay home all day when the kids were sick.  I made them all the best comfort foods and put them in a warm bath and let them break all the rules and watch unlimited TV all morning and napped with them in their beds.  I didn’t care if I caught what they had because I knew I was doing the most important job being there with them.  How did I get here?

My son needs to be picked up from practice at 4pm each day.  This can be a difficult time to make for a working parent.  His friend’s mom says she’ll bring him home anytime he needs a ride.  This makes me feel very, very guilty.  I ask her to let me do some of the driving for her son - can’t we set up a carpool, I say.  I desperately try to make it “fair”.  She laughs it off, saying that someday when she is working I can drive her kid for her. When is this day, exactly?  When your husband leaves you and you have no choice but to try and develop a career after having been home all those years??  She, of course, is doing exactly what I would have done in her situation, and just being helpful - the whole “it takes a village” bullshit, right?  How did I get here?

I used to take the kids to construction areas when they were little, just to watch the bulldozers and bobcats and dump trucks.  This was all very exciting, once upon a time.  Now, when my young step kids ask to stop at a park and play, we are almost always in too much of a hurry for me to say, “yes”.  How did I get here?

And dinner time!  Didn’t we used to sit down to dinner each night as a family, dammit?  We talked about our day and appreciated the meal and learned our manners.  Now it’s all too often eating in the car between events and please don’t spill mayonnaise on my car seats.  How did I get here?

I love being independent.  I love building a successful business.  I enjoy all my “paid” jobs very much and feel grateful every day that I can work for myself and have the flexibility to attend many of my kids’ sporting events, school conferences and music concerts, even if I have to work until 1am in order to do it.

But... I wonder.  Having gone from all-in-over-the-top-devoted “at home” mom to a working parent trying to manage three jobs, five kids, a new husband and an ex-husband, not to mention more hobbies than anyone should be allowed to have, a fixer-upper bank foreclosure home that seemed like a great idea at the time and a teenager who is WAY beyond giving us “normal” trouble  **deep breath** - is there a better way?  Does somebody have a secret that I wasn’t let in on?  Do we all have the same struggles and suffer them quietly, feeling inadequate in our own individual situations?

Could somebody please tell me how in the world did I get here?