I am working toward reestablishing my IT career and as a single parent with three teenagers, the notion of work-life balance is something that has been on my mind quite a lot, particularly during the past week.
Last week was a varied mixture of emotion, analysis, decisions, actions, and reflections. In one week, so much has happened.
Last week, I learned that the father of a close friend passed away at the age of 95. He was a very successful businessman, a community leader, and a dedicated family man who held political office. Ethics meant something to him. He was an early environmentalist and he played fair. He lived by the golden rule and had a full and rewarding life. He is from a generation that is all but gone now.
His passing occurred the same day of a brutal and heinous murder of a lovely and sweet, 14-year-old girl. No parent wants to think that this could ever happen to their child; that while at work, their teenager could walk into their own home after school and meet a horrific end. This event has been met with a community outpouring of support and investigative police work that is by no small accounts, impressive.
On Friday, it was announced that the alleged perpetrator had been detained at nearly the same time that my two 14-year-old students attended her funeral. Eventually, almost everyone learns that part of being an empathetic human being includes paying respect to a family who has lost a loved one. This should not have been the one that initiated them into that club. I am proud of the way they managed themselves this week. My children have big hearts.
And in an almost surreal moment last week, the high school football team which seemed to have a no chance at the beginning of the season, made it into the state playoffs and came from pretty far behind to win their playoff game in overtime on Saturday. The team dedicated the game to their slain classmate with the coaches and spectators shedding yet more tears at the end of the game. It sounds like a scene from of a movie. Sadly, it is not.
This set of happenings in our community has alone, made this last week one that will not be forgotten. It is a stark reminder that clarifies why as adults, we set priorities and make the work-life choices that we do, whether we have children or not.
Last week, I spent time splitting up my domains and started working on my online photography portfolio. You can follow along here if you like. Suggestions are welcome. As you will see it is not finished, permalinks and content are not all in place so navigation and final look and feel is sketchy, but I don’t care if you peek. I plan to do the minimum amount of customization on this portfolio as the ROI on my targeted learning time these days is a precious commodity and as much as I like WordPress, it is not on the critical path to restarting a career.
Last week, I photographed my first newborn. Not my first newborn, she’s old enough to drive. I photographed a young mother and her first baby. The mother, the baby, and the baby’s great-grandmother are beautiful people, inside and out. What a joy to capture this moment in time for them. It was a bright and happy moment not to mention a great learning experience. I think about what it will take for this young mom to put herself through college, working toward a secure future for herself and her child. I imagine work-life/school-life balance will be ongoing issues for them.
Last week, I went downtown to a software developer’s meeting and listened to a “veteran” explain a testing concept for nearly an hour that, in all honesty, could have been done [standing up] in approximately five minutes.
I sat among a slew of mostly twenty-something males who talked among themselves about things like how they didn’t want to program anything on the back-end that involved algebra, because they would have to go back and relearn their…uh…high school algebra. Hmmm, I would do it. I bet I could find a few high school algebra geeks who would be interested too.
One of the software developer gentlemen also mentioned that his priority was to try to attend as many concerts as possible. That’s work-life balance from an entirely different perspective and it sort of made me long for my carefree twenty-something life.
For about two seconds.
Last week, I spent time at the police station. No, I am not the trouble-maker you think I am. I was there to communicate something that may be helpful to my neighborhood. I could have looked the other way, or brushed it off or rationalized that it was not my problem. Never has it been more apparent than this week that at a very basic level, everyone wants security. It is universal. And never has it been more apparent that cooperation, coordination and communication are critical to reducing the probability of unexpected negative circumstances at work, at school, at home, virtually everywhere. I’m glad I talked to the police. It wasn’t a big deal.
Last week, I attended my son’s high school sports banquet and connected with other neighborhood parents. No doubt, we all had a lot on our minds. We shared mostly light-hearted stories and considerately displayed our support for our children’s hard work both as individual athletes and as part of the team. It is not surprising that after the week we have had around here, nobody talked about work.
This week, most of us are back into our regular work/home/school routines and it is good to focus on being productive and moving forward.
After last week, I am looking at my home life with a heavy dose of wistfulness. Work-life balance is taking on new importance. Time is running out. Today, it seems awfully short.
