Can I Plan On Having It All?

I don’t have a hard time prioritizing.  I am a planner.  I live by my schedule and I facilitate the social calendars of two littles, coordinate my meeting schedule at work, and figure out when I will have a chance to make cupcakes for school.  Planning and prioritizing is my thing.  I’ll get my deliverable done, make the decision, or whatever I need to get done…and it will be on time.

So, I can’t believe my Type-A, over-planning self is having such a hard time with what I want.  What do I want?  Seriously, why can’t I answer this question?

Many evenings I sit and fret about what I am missing at home with Jillian.  I so dearly miss my two weekdays a week at home with her.  Dearly.  Working full-time, suddenly every change involves constantly finagling the schedule.  A doctor’s appointment?  What used to be no big deal is now a juggling act to work out.  Ben took Jillian to the doctor for the first time last week.  I skipped it entirely.  My meeting schedule just couldn’t be worked out.  Sure, it’s not that big of a deal.  He is more than capable.  But, you know, as with so many other things, I let it eat away at my mom confidence.

Then, I have my work.  I have a work-mode and I frankly don’t understand how these two halves of myself are so vastly different.  While I am actually at work, I find myself thinking forward to the next potential position, how I can further my career, and what development activities I can complete to catapult me to the next level…

Exactly how does this fit together?  I don’t get it.  After losing the baby last February, I was devastated.  I wanted a third baby with all of my heart.  I still do.  Every month that passes I am more and more sad and frustrated that my “plan” didn’t work out.  Silly isn’t it?  That isn’t something you can plan.  I have absolutely no control.

You know what my plan was?  You want full disclosure?  My plan was to go back to work full time, have a baby, and go back to part-time.  That was it in a nutshell.  So as not to mislead my employer, I was completely up-front about my plan.  They were cool with it.  Full time for as long as it was possible was fine with them.

It didn’t work out how I wanted it to.  I set myself up.  Duh.  I can’t plan everything.  The big things in life...the important things...are never planned.  Not by us, anyway.  God has the Franklin planner on that one.  I don’t write the entries.  I made a Rookie mistake assuming that I had the decision-making ability to carry out my plan.  So, I get grumpy. I get frustrated that I am working full time, with no “plan” progression as intended.  Ask Ben, he hears it.

So...I wait.  And in my antsiness (I know this isn’t really a word – I made it up) to end this waiting period in my life…I wonder…  Do I try to put into motion the potential to further my career with the possibility of backing myself into a corner where returning to part time just isn’t an option?  Did we lose the baby because God doesn’t have that in the plan book for us?  What dreams do I want more?  The dream to be home with my babies?  Or, the career aspirations that I have worked towards for the last eleven years?  

I’ll be honest, I’m not sure that I am really capable of “having it all”.  What the hell does that really mean anyway?  Have it all?   Define “all” for me please.  Is it what I have now?  An awesome family?  A great job?  Does it mean making it to the end of the day with most things on the list accomplished?  Is it simply, happiness?  Does it mean you are always striving for the next job and have the happy family at home too?  What does it really mean?  For me, a higher position and a new baby?  I may be good, but I’m not so sure I’m that good.  Is it a one or the other option for me?  I likely could get both jobs done…just not the way I want to do them.  So does that mean I shouldn’t try and progress my career because someday I could be blessed with another baby? 

I love this family that I have already been given.  Our little family of four is quite amazing.  I’m not exactly sure why the little voice in my head keeps singing for another little set of ten fingers and ten toes.  I’m completely happy listening to that calling for that third potential miracle, but then why the heck does that other demanding and competitive voice drive me towards pushing for more responsibilities and a new challenge at work.  I can’t do it all.  So why can’t I prioritize? What do I want?

I don’t have all the answers and this rant that is hard to even follow doesn’t help.  Well, it does help to blow it all off and let the words fall, but it doesn’t get me any closer to knowing what to do.  What to aim for.  How to prioritize my dreams. 

My plan?  I think it is time to let someone else plan everything for me.  Something I should have had the intelligence to know from the start.  I don’t really have the control anyway.  Time to let go.  What will be…will be.  Time to let go.  If I keep saying that it will sink in, right?