From Where I Stand.

Our past makes our present & our present makes our future.  It is a simple statement, but so much more.  Our lives are made up of experiences & expectations, ideas & insecurities, actions & reactions, all coming together to the moment we are currently in.

A couple weeks ago I went into 'the office' which is a term I use very loosely, as it is not my office, but my broker's office where I hang my real estate license...did you I know I still have that?  Back from my 'real job days'...well yes.  I still have it & it is still fun to me.  Anyway, I went to 'the office' to pick up some paperwork, this, that & the other.  It was on a bank holiday day & so Scot was home & I had to get up earlier than normal to shower, get dressed & 'go to work.'  It was odd leaving the house all dolled up & him here with the kids in his pj's.  Complete role reversal.  I drove my 20 minutes out of suburbia & arrived at 'the office.'  And felt like I was in the 'ghetto.'  Mind you 'the ghetto' is a stone's throw from my old college campus that I attended year in & year out...not at all thinking it was the ghetto.

But now?  Things have changed.  I now live in suburbia with my own kids & rarely travel outside my little 3 mile radius of tree-lined streets & white picket fences.  I wave to the same neighbors, borrow eggs from the same friends & trade kids with my sister.  It struck me in that moment how quickly my perception had changed.  How quickly the new became the norm & the old unfamiliar.

And that was just over a place.  Not a person.  Not an event.  Just a location.

A few weeks after going to 'the office' I went out with Scot & some of his colleagues...who were mostly women.  Some were married.  Some had children.  But all worked outside of the home full time.  As they discussed nannies & work deadlines, I again felt out of sort.  Mind you before kids, I had a 'real' job {that I really loved}, so I was surprised at my disconnect & inability to relate.

As they laughed about nannies going to story time deep down I wondered if they valued my choice to stay home.  Deep down I wondered if they put me in the 'dumb blonde' category.  Deep down I wondered if they thought I couldn't hold a job.  Deep down I wondered what my perception was on them.  Did they know it was a deliberate & real choice?  A choice I looked forward to my whole life?

I got in the car & cried.  And then I came home.  To my tree-lined streets & white picket fences.  To my neighbors & friends who have made the same choices as me.  To my kids who teach me more everyday, than I teach them.  And we did it all over again. 

And while I will never know what my perception is on them, I do know that I am happy with my choice.  I love my own 'co-workers' who are in the trenches with me.  Who I can wholeheartedly relate to as we swap 'who was sick where' stories, favorite recipes & family vacations.  And while my day-to-day is mostly unglamorous, it has it perks.  They are items that don't show up on a stat sheet.  The intangibles.  The inside jokes with my 4 year-old, the 'will you snuggle me's' in the afternoon, the ability to understand exactly what my 2 year-old is saying & knowing just how she likes her blanket.  They are small & simple, but deep down, I don't want to be anywhere else.

I am choosing this.  And this makes me happy.