M.I.A. no longer

I’m happy to report that I’m no longer M.I.A. from this blog.  It’s been a long while – or it felt like it anyway – but I’m back.  Just as I was getting into a groove of posting regularly, I was felled by the flu for most of a week in January.  Okay, that’s being a touch overly dramatic but you get my drift.  It was an evil, evil snowball of events after that leads to where I am now…  My work/life balance is waaaaay out of whack.  Working too much, paying too little attention to the rest of my life (just ask my husband!).  Even when I am home I’m too tired to want to do much of anything.  So my goal in the next few weeks is to get back on track.  First, I want to start getting up at 6:00 every day.  Some days I’ll go to the gym and other days I’ll to work early.  Second, I want to leave work on time.  5:30 on normal days, 4:30 on the days I go in early. 

I find that one of the first things to go when I get out of balance like this is my sense of fun and joy.  I try to create it or find little pockets of it by being goofy but that can get obnoxious (just ask my husband!) and doesn’t really give me a sense of true joy or fun.  When I get like this and people ask “how are you?” I usually answer with a flip “I’m still standing!” or “I’m still here – better than the alternative.”  Umm, negativity much?  So I’m not Christian and I don’t celebrate Easter – or, by extension, Lent – but this year I’m trying out the whole giving-something-up-for-Lent thing.  In addition to the aforementioned attempts at finding balance, I’m giving up negativity.  More accurately, I’m going to work on being more positive – see the good around me instead of the bad, the frustrating, or the aggravating.  I will appreciate my husband more and pick at him less.  I will enjoy the sunny days we have (even if they’re cold) and grumble less about it still being winter.   I will be grateful I have a job where I learn new and interesting things every day and complain & worry about the workload less.  I doubt I’ll ever be one of those people that is so damn perky you just don’t know how they do it, but – damn it! – I can aspire to it! 

Getting rich or getting it right

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about careers, finances, and family.  Those are probably the three biggest topics rattling around in my brain right now.  The following may be an oversimplification but indulge me a minute… there seems to be two schools of thought when selecting a career – do what you need to do to get rich or do what you need to do to be happy and have a positive effect on the world. 

On the one hand, you have people who advocate getting a degree that’ll lead to a job that’ll make you the big bucks.  This often means spending the first decade of your career working insanely, obscenely hard and having very little down time.  The trade off is that you start making good money and position yourself to make even bigger money in the following decades, all while having more down time because you can delegate to others.  The other trade off is that it’s hard to start and maintain relationships while you’re doing that.  These are what I call the “getting rich” folks.  These are the people at the top of their field or company or working to be there.  These are the jobs usually filled by men and sport an impressive salary.  To make this work you either have to decide to not have a family or to have a stay-at-home spouse that can take care of everything domestic while you’re out working. 

On the other hand you have the “getting it right” camp that advocates finding the job that is fulfilling for you and just making the finances work.  There may not be big money in community organizing, being a pastor of an inner city church, being a daycare provider, being a social worker, etc. but there is personal satisfaction and community betterment and that is payment enough.  (Like I said, this is an oversimplification…)  These jobs can allow for more time with family but they can also demand as much time and attention as you’re willing to give.  There’s always someone who needs your help just around the next corner.  Service jobs are notoriously filled by women and they are poorly compensated.  To make it work you either have to commit to a life among the working poor or marry someone with a better income than you.  Having one parent stay at home isn’t usually an option.

The people I know in the “getting rich” category are mostly (but not entirely) men with wives at home that care for the children and household.  The wage earners are away for 10 – 12 hours a day at work or commuting and then are tethered to email while they’re at home.  Their spouses fill them in on what’s happening in each of the children’s lives and tend to the emotional needs of the kids.  The wage earner usually makes an effort to connect with their kids on a regular basis but connecting and being a present, participating parent are two different things.  I’ve seen more than a few marriages of the “getting rich” folks fall apart, leaving the wage earner feeling unprepared for the demands of single parenthood and requiring them to get to know their children.

The people I know in the “getting it right” category often are have more time together as a family but they don’t have a level of financial stability that I’d be comfortable with.  Folks like social workers are notorious for giving too much – of their time, of their heart, of their money – that they don’t always leave enough for the people at home.  If these marriages fall apart, one or both of the spouses can find themselves in a desperate financial situation pretty quickly.  That, then, limits the opportunities that their kids have.

I grew up soundly in the “getting it right” camp with a healthy disdain for the “getting rich” category.  Functionally, our family didn’t quite follow those guidelines but that was the career planning lesson that I took with me to college.  I started out in American Sign Language interpreting – I loved the language and the people but I didn’t like the idea of being just a conduit for communication.  I wanted to be more interactive so I went to grad school for social work.  Needless to say, it’s not the wisest career path if you’re in the “getting rich” category!  However, having your master’s degree can lead to supervisory roles and boost your income.  At times, though, I wish I had chosen another path – one where I don’t have to work quite as hard to earn my salary.

I’d like to think that there’s a more middle of the road option.  I think the “getting rich” folks are onto something when they focus on earning money and being financially stable.  I’ve come to realize that I REALLY don’t like feeling like I’m only one catastrophic event away from financial ruin.  Earning money isn’t a bad thing but earning money at any cost is.  I also think that the “getting it right” folks are onto something when they focus on personal satisfaction.  I’ve come to realize that I would have a very hard time working for an organization or corporation whose mission statement I didn’t support.  In theory, I could slog away at a corporate desk job but the psychological and emotional toll of that would leave me with very little time or energy for anything outside work.  That’s just who I am. 

So where do we find that balance between financial stability, personal satisfaction, and being able to give my family what I need and want to give them?  I’m not sure; that’s what I’ve been rattling around in my head recently.  I guess the first step in finding that path is to acknowledge that I do want to have stuff – nice stuff – and being okay with that.  I like having furniture that doesn’t require assembly, stylish and well-fitting professional clothes, a new car - or rather, I think I’d like to have these things.  We don’t have them now because we just can’t swing it and we don’t want to be so beholden to debt that we have to push ourselves further into the “getting rich” category than we want to be.  Acknowledging that you like stuff is pretty un-Quaker since one of the tenets of Quakerism is simplicity.  Sure, I can get behind some simplicity but I still want to have some luxuries/comforts/stuff.  In other words, I ain’t willing to live off the grid!

The second step is acknowledging that there are some jobs I could do and some I couldn’t and then finding some of the better paying ones in the “some jobs I could do” category and pursuing them.  I wish I’d started thinking this way when I was selecting a major in undergrad or at least when I was selecting a grad school program.  I approached it with the “do what you want to do and everything else will fall into place” mindset.  I wish I’d thought it through a little more.  (Well, that and I wish I hadn’t funded everything with student loans!!)

Any subsequent steps, well, I’m still working them out.  The ironic thing about this whole train of thought is that I’m in a pretty good job right now.  I’m doing something I love and getting reasonably well compensated for it.  It certainly doesn’t hurt that my husband is working for a corporation and makes more than I do, though!!

Vacation and random thoughts

I was almost giddy on my way home today.  The reason?  I have the next 3 days off.  Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I have a few days of vacation!  Let’s break out the happy dance!!  It’s a good thing, too.  I think my brain needs a break, my body needs a change of scenery, and my empathy needs a little rest.

Work has actually been going very well recently.  I’ve been productive and have been learning to juggle my new responsibilities.  It’s still not without challenges but I do feel – most days – like I’m getting a handle on it.  I’m also learning to work within my limits and that some things need to give a bit.  Remarkably, the addition of new responsibilities at the end of May has spurred me to do better finding balance.  First, I’ve started getting up every day at 6.  Some days I go for a run; the other days I go into work early.  That 45 minutes to an hour that I’m there before everyone else gets there tend to be my most productive.  Getting there early also allows me to leave early and – get this! – I’ve actually been doing just that!  I’m finding that I have more time at home (and more energy while I’m there) if I leave work at 4:30 rather than 5:30 or 6:00.  It’s been kind of nice.  Second, I’ve been doing better about not bringing work home with me.  Not letting it invade the twilight moments before I fall asleep at night and when I’m waking in the morning.  I’m not sure if I’m learning the skill of work/home separation or it’s a sanity preservation skill.  Either way, I’m glad for it.

My current challenge is figuring out what I do with the extra time.  Sure, wedding planning takes up some of that, as does catching up on my blog reading.  However, there are still lots of hours waiting to be filled.  Some of it gets taken up by evening walks and phone calls to friends.  Still trying to figure out what I want to do with the rest of it…

The next few days we’ll be staying at a place in the Poconos.  Pete’s aunt and uncle are loaning us their home up there.  It will be fun.  We’re taking both bikes, as well as my kayak and our hiking boots, so we’ll be doing lots of outdoors stuff.  I think, though, that there may be a fair amount of sitting around, reading, playing cards, sleeping, and stuff.  It’s taken a lot of discipline lately to keep getting up at 6 a.m.  I’m looking forward to a little self-indulgence with sleeping in and all. 

As I write about sleeping in I’m thinking about my friends that just had a beautiful baby boy.  It’s reminded me that having the luxury of sleeping in is not something that will be in my life forever.  Guess I should take full advantage now!   

Back to the running… I’ve successfully completed 2 weeks of the 4th podcast in the Couch to 5K program and am working my way through the 5th podcast.  I continue to be kind of amazed about the changes I’m feeling in my body.  On Monday I did 3 5-minute runs broken up by 2 3-minute recovery walks.  I was amazed to find that, by the end of the run, I was still feeling pretty good.  Even better, for the first time since I started exercising my heart rate did not go over 180 while I was running. 

I have been figuring out my target heart rate over the past few years and realized that it got really high really easily.  The general rule of thumb is that 100% of your heart rate is 220 – your age.  For me that would be 189 or so.  However, when I first started running my heart rate would get to 191 when I was really tired.  It regularly got into the high 180s and stayed there.

In the past, I got headaches that lasted all day if I exercised too hard.  I didn’t understand why and went to see a neurologist.  She confirmed I have a brain and there’s nothing significantly wrong with it.  (Hallelujah!) It was Pete that wondered if my heart rate might be causing the problem.  2 Christmases ago he bought me a heart monitor and that has been tremendously useful.  It’s the way that I found out that my heart rate went way too high.  I pretty quickly learned that I got the headaches if my heart rate went above 188 or so for any length of time.  I’ve been learning how to slow my heart rate without necessarily stopping the exercise I’m doing (slowing on my breathing and slowing my intensity work nicely).  Even with this, though, my heart rate has regularly been in the 180s.  So you see why keeping my heart rate in the 170s while doing 3 5-minute runs is kind of amazing for me. 

I guess the lesson I’m learning is that I do need to do more regular cardiac exercise in order to keep the ticker in shape.  Cardiac disease (specifically high blood pressure) runs in my mother’s family so I’ve been thinking about heart health more as I get older.  I don’t want to wake up at 50 and realize that I’m out of shape and have shortened my lifespan because of inactivity.  I’m not old now but 40 and 50 have appeared on the horizon; they may be teeny little specks that are way far away but they’re there!

Other than cardiac capacity, I’ve been enjoying the way that my muscles feel as they tone up with the running.  Since I’ve never been a particularly active person, I’ve never really experienced what it’s like to have decent muscle tone.  It’s kind of funny… I find myself poking my thighs on a disturbingly regular basis.  They’ve gotten so… firm.  I know, I know that’s to be expected but you have to understand that this has never happened to me so it’s kind of wild to see (and feel) it happen.  The other thing that’s surprised me is difference I’ve felt in my abs and my arms thanks to the running.  I wouldn’t have expected it – and it’s not as dramatic as the change in my legs – but it’s still there.  Maybe if I keep this up I’ll be able to morph my self image from “out of shape and kind of squishy” to “in healthy shape and only a little squishy.”