Balance Is a Lie

I’ve spent years trying to find it. The perfect split between work Brighton and mom Brighton.

The version of my life where I’m fully present with my kids and also building something I’m proud of professionally. Where neither one suffers. Where I’m not dropping balls on either end.

I’m still looking.

And I think I finally have to admit it. It’s not because I haven’t tried hard enough.

It’s because balance, the way we talk about it, isn’t real.

It’s a word we use to describe something that has never actually existed for women doing more than one hard thing at once.

Here’s what my life actually looks like: I’m either in mom mode or I’m in work mode. And when I’m in one, the other is waiting. Sometimes impatiently.

Working from home is its own particular challenge. My kids are still in preschool, so we’re not talking full days of school. There’s a lot of overlap. A lot of me trying to do something that needs my whole brain in a house where someone very small can open the door at any second.

The other day I was on my second Zoom of the day. I was talking through strategy, the kind of work I’m actually good at, and I was locked in. Fully work Brighton.

And my son opened the door and said, “Mommy, I know you’re working, but I’ve been coloring and I was wondering, would you come play with me? Maybe double bounce me on the trampoline?”

It took my breath away.

I canceled the rest of my day. Went outside and double bounced him on the trampoline. We played Legos and did flips on the couch too. Oh! And built a fort.

I’ll be honest with you though, and this is the part I think we skip. Making that switch was hard. Not hard like I didn’t want to be with him.

Hard like my brain was still in the call, still three steps deep into the strategy, and someone was asking me to put all of it down mid-sentence.

When my kids ask me to play, it’s a need I can’t ignore and the thing I want more than anything, at the exact same time. And it still takes everything in me to actually close the laptop.

Here’s what I’m starting to understand.

I was never going to win at balance, because I was measuring the wrong thing.

I kept thinking if I were just a little more disciplined, a little more organized, I could build a life where nothing ever had to wait. Where work Brighton and mom Brighton each got a full, uninterrupted version of me.

That life doesn’t exist. Not the way I was picturing it or least not for me.

What’s actually true is that I’m always choosing.

Every single day, I’m choosing what gets me and what waits. I used to call that failing.

I’m trying to call it what it actually is now. A lack of time was never really my problem.

My time goes where I decide it goes, and for years I was deciding on autopilot and then feeling guilty about wherever it landed.

The trampoline was me deciding on purpose. The Zoom waited. (It was fine. It’s always more fine than I think it’s going to be.)

I don’t have this figured out. I’ll probably be back in work mode tomorrow with the guilt sitting right behind me, and the day after that I’ll be on the floor coloring while my inbox quietly fills up. Neither of those is balance. Both of them are just me, picking.

So, anyways….my hot take is that balance is a lie (to me).

I’m not chasing it anymore. I’m just trying to be honest about what I’m choosing, and who’s waiting while I choose it. The other day it was the Zoom that waited. It won’t always be the Zoom. That’s the part I’m still learning to sit with.