by Michelle Tremblay

Have you ever felt like you just want to drop everything and run?  Run as fast as possible, run as far as possible…and most importantly run all by yourself?  Well if you have, you are certainly not alone.  Lately I’ve been feeling very overwhelmed, and the attempt to juggle both my career and home life as wife and “supermom” has proven to be quite the struggle, and I must honestly admit I have been fighting the urge to run.

At this moment, I have some serious decisions to make with regard to my career and although I have a pretty clear idea of the path I should be following, my curiosity, desire and excitement to play “Let’s make a deal” and see what’s behind “Door Number 2” is making my decision much more difficult.  Ultimately, I know I will not choose to open “Door Number 2” – not because I don’t want to, but because realistically I am aware that opening that door is not what makes sense for my family.  However, the fact that I can’t open that door – can’t even take a peek, because of the difficulty it will undoubtedly cause my family is admittedly frustrating. 

If I were alone, and didn’t have my kids or husband to consider, I would probably swing that door open and run through without looking back.  But once you become a wife and a mother, your career always seems to take a back seat.  You might think it doesn’t, because on the surface it looks as though everyone is supportive and you are able to make any decision you want, but when you peel back the layers, you realize that you are unable to make any decision about your career without regard for the impact it will have on the ones you love. 

So here I am - with a decision to make that really isn’t much of a decision at all since I already know the outcome, and I want so desperately to run.  But I won’t, I won’t run, and I will do what’s right for my husband and my children.  Because that’s what we do, as women we nurture, protect, support and love our husbands and our children, and very often, more often than not, put their needs before ours, and place ourselves in the back seat.

So what I have realized is that no matter how successful or career driven I may be, my family does come first.  I chose to be a wife and a mom, and no matter what, that is who I am, and there is no running from that.  I’m also certain that I am not the only woman out there who has felt this way, that we have all felt the desire to run at some point, to just be alone, to be responsible for no one else but ourselves.

However, the most important lesson I learned today is that feeling this way is ok, that it does not make me any less of a wife or mother, it just makes me human.

Filed under: Author Michelle, Work