It's Tough Being a Woman

That is the understatement of the year.

I sat in on my Sunday women's bible study this morning. They're doing Beth Moore's Esther study; one which I began with them a while back and had to abandon as I couldn't make the time for the homework. Anyhoo, the subtitle of the the book is that it's tough being a woman, and boy is that ever true.

Tomorrow, I am contemplating making a huge change in my work life. Without releasing too many details, I'll just say that I don't have the best work-life balance right now. Some of it is my own doing, but the larger portion of it is simply due to the expectations and responsibility placed upon me. This has been causing me quite a bit of inner conflict for some time now, for several reasons, and it's just gotten to a point where I have to make a change.

I bring up the premise of the Beth Moore tagline for Esther because I think, if I were a man, I probably wouldn't feel half of the way I do. I wouldn't be feeling the stress and loneliness that is management. I wouldn't be contemplating a work change primarily directed by my obligation to my family. And I wouldn't be feeling so guilty for wanting to make this change.

It's tough being a woman. It's tough being a mother.

Because I am a woman, I do feel that I'm missing out on so much of my children's lives when I drop them off early at daycare and pick them up late and when I'm having to take calls during dinner because there's some crisis at work. I do feel sometimes like I'm so busy building a resume that I'm not able to build a life. And I do feel, as someone who lost her mother at a young age, that I want my children to remember me as being not just there, but present, in the moment, absorbing it all.

I dread tomorrow and dread knowing that I'll probably be having a very difficult conversation with my boss which will more than likely include how he thinks I'll be wasting my talent and destroying an opportunity and making a mistake giving up my current success.

The problem is that to achieve this success, I've had to give up so much more.

It's tough being a woman.