Take a good look at this picture, folks. This is me and my boy, almost six years ago, on the job. He couldn’t have been any older than five or six months. I was a lunatic in the midst of my “Every Woman” phase; energetic and naive enough to think I could do it all. Even though I tried at the time (and subsequently failed) to juggle all of the balls of my life with equal parts love and attention, I don’t remember being this tired.

Until one fateful day, in a position a year and a half ago, I was told to pack my iPod docking station and go. Bummer, right? Kind of. As much as being laid-off sucked (and it did indeed suck), what didn’t suck was all the time I got to spend with my boy. I was exhibiting real SAHM (stay-at-home mom)-type behaviors. I picked him up from school. I went to the Halloween costume parade in the middle of the day. I took him to the park while the sun was still up instead of putting it off until Saturday. We ate dinner at 6! Even when I started working part-time, there was a flexibility to my schedule that allowed me to be with him in a way I would have never gotten to if I had to work five to six (sometimes seven) days a week. I enjoyed that part of my career hiatus. The other parts still sucked.

So, here I am again. Living just enough for the ci-tay. Well, I’m working in the city (New York City, that is), full-time to boot. I like what I do and my pockets like what I do too, but…there’s always a but. I’m tired. Did I say that before? And I miss my boy. Here’s the thing. I wake up at 5:30am and set foot back in my apartment at 7:30pm. We cram a lot into the hour and a half before his bedtime. After he lays down and we say our I-love-yous, I sit on the couch long enough to realize I have to do this all over again tomorrow. Why am I frustrated by that? Ask any mom with a job. Better yet, ask any mom with a job that’s going back to school or is starting a business. Being is mother is not light work, whether you have a paying job or not. I actually don’t get how SATMs with more than one child do it. Respect. But with working moms there is always this guilt of not being there and I’m still too young to be that guilt-ridden…again.

I’m a 31-year-old woman with aspirations of being useful to my job without being useless at home. Does this sound reasonable to anyone else? It can’t just be me. I want to work and I miss my boy, but I don’t want to be the mom that has to bring her kid to work in order to spend time with him (i.e. me circa 2006). The road I’ve traveled to this point in my life has made me a lot wiser about the ways of the world and I’ve learned that the world doesn’t care if I get home in time to thaw out some chicken. So, where do we go from here? I’m trying to figure it out. There is no easy answer. I HAVE to work and I AM a mom. In my world, those two are constant. In my world, those two will always be at odds. In my world, we go to the park on Saturdays, thaw the chicken on Sundays and figure out the rest as it comes.