Finding my escape

So like most, working day in and day out, doing the same thing just through a new day, gets exhausting and old – quickly.  Though unlike so many, I recognize that I’ve been incredibly fortunate throughout my career.  My career has been full of so many challenges and I have a true sense of accomplishment from hitting so many of my personal goals in that journey.  But no matter how I slice or dice it, at this stage of my career I find that even though there are new opportunities and challenges at work all the time, they all feel the same at the end of the day.

As a result, the older I get, I find that while I’ve had a strong career and am steady on that course, I question if that is really all that life is supposed to be about.  As a wife and mother, I am gaining new perspective every day, particularly as I watch my children grow and share their views from the world as they see it.  I’m also reminded of how much my career path has strayed from my childhood dreams and whimsy.  Frankly, I’ve forgotten how to have fun and how to focus on what inspires ME (not what inspires my company or will help my career).  Possibly it is just a yearning I have for new challenges or maybe it’s my version of a mid-life crisis brewing.  Either way, it’s a door that has been opened up and I’m eager to see where it leads.

That is why I’ve started on this parallel path of writing.  It is a passion I’ve always had and I realized at the end of the day, I need to make time doing what is meaningful to ME.  The challenge I have is of course, like pretty much most working parents, finding the time.  Given my personal challenge sleeping through the night and my long commute, I use those little nuggets of time to rattle through my thoughts and ideas to carve out where I want to write next and build that base story.  This isn’t meant to replace my other path, but rather compliment it and help me stay balanced with who I am.

Having bottled up my creative side for so long however, I struggle because I have a lot of stories that I’ve imagined in my head over the years and they are all competing at the moment.  To add to the multitude of stories I really want to fine tune and share, they are also across several genres.  As much as I am trying to focus now on getting some of my children’s stories on the page, I have a few more ‘mature audience’ stories nagging away at me, eager to be formulated and brought to life (before minds begin to wander, they run along the lines of crime, thrillers and a few supernatural themes).

So each night when I struggle to sleep, I try to get a few thoughts down and let my wandering mind (yes, I’ve been known to have ‘shiny ball syndrome’) my hope is that I will be afforded enough time in this life to get through them all and tell them one by one until I feel a sense of closure for this chapter or who knows, inspiration to take it further than just a parallel journey to my current life.

Alas, tonight however, I have a little one who is past tired, but eager for cuddle time so I’m off to enjoy extra snuggles while I can get them before he is grown and ‘too cool’ for mom. 😉