Having Some

Toddler: "Where's Mommy?" Nanny: "She's working now, but you'll see her after your nap."

Toddler: "Then I wanna nap now."

On big writing days, I spend a lot of time outside the house. Because if I were home, Toddler would sit on my lap the whole time and pound away on my keyboard. And that would be fun, but Laptop would probably break. And my blog posts and book chapters would look like this: gdfWJKLGFHJ SSGLSDJFNNNNNNNNNN which does not a career make. So, I leave Toddler and Baby and head to my Starbucks sanctuary where I write. And though I'm able to enter a freakish zone of focus even in the Macchiato mayhem, there is always something in the back of my mind. Two things, actually. My girls.

Even though I see my girls all the time (and know there are countless women and men out there who are forced to spend the majority of their days and weeks away from their kids and I do not pretend to understand how hard this must be), even though I know my girls are mere blocks away and very happy, I miss them. And each and every day, I wonder if it's worth it. If it's worth pursuing goals that don't (directly) involve them, goals that necessarily take me away from them. And, at my little table in the back of that bustling and cliched coffee shop, I nod every time. Yes, it's worth it. Because I love writing. I'm happy when I write. And I'm a better mother when I'm writing and when I'm happy. So, it's both very worth it and very hard.

And when I return home, Nanny usually has a litany of cute stories to tell me. And I love hearing them. Yes, even when they are stories about how much my girls miss me when I am gone. No, we can't have it all. But we can have some. The challenge is to convince ourselves that some is indeed enough.