the lotus momma

the lotus momma

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

mourning my cubicle

For those of you who have seen my last few offices, I have an admission.  I am not that clean and I am not that organized.  My home life has always been more of the organized chaos, "I know where everything is", kind of environment.  I don't know when or why it happened, but sometime when I was developing my office/cubicle persona, I 1. realized how much time we spend in our offices (most of our awake time) and 2. REALLY enjoyed having my own space.  You see, I have never, not once had my own room and now I was treating my offices as that haven.  So like any self-proclaimed nerd, I began buying my own office supplies (who didn't love back-to-school time? new folders? new pens?)  At some point, I went further, transitioning into interior design--incorporating paint, fabric, art!  I know.  It was a bit ridiculous.  But it was mine.  It was beautiful to me. And where I shared every other space in my life and so had relinquished complete control, here I was organized and comfortable, the person I wanted to be in all aspects of my life.


And now I work at home.  My office is my living room.  If I dropped my child off every morning at someone else's home, I would expect it to be neater than organized chaos and so I feel like it needs to be perfect.  But the space is not mine alone.   I share it with a family I love.  It is obviously not fair to my DH to make him feel like he can't really live in the space.   And so now I mourn my office and find myself negotiating a new self-awareness.  It never occured to me when I decided to stay home and become a nanny that I would be losing my office.  It now seems symbolic of the question I find myself asking often as a stay-at-home mom--how do I keep myself?

5 comments:

  1. Tasha, I love this post. So well said.

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  2. Wow your old cubby looked great, I can see why you miss it.
    15 hours

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  3. Totally agree with Daniel. Beautiful office space, Tash. I totally get missing it too...

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  4. Here I am, commenting again! Having a toddler, alot of your thoughts on family and life changes have struck a chord with me since I've recently faced some of these things.

    I just wanted to say that it isn't only stay-at-home moms that go on this grueling and eye-reopening process that is becoming more than just a caretaker/mother. I went back to work after 7 weeks and I struggled with this immensely. Going back to work didn't help. It actually made the situation worse because I had less control over what my child endured on a daily basis. While I enjoy working and being able to "get away" for a few hours a day, the grass is always greener. There are days that I feel like staying home is the right thing and then there are days that I absolutely KNOW that I couldn't be a stay-at-home mom.

    Just a head's up...Jayna is 2.5 years old. And I'm STILL finding parts of myself scattered hither and yon. Seriously. It's definitely a process, I think especially for women who were very independent and career-oriented before having children.

    One thing that Chris and I did was designate a "child-free zone." Jayna's things are not allowed to be there. She is allowed to go in the room, but that room is off limits for her stuff. When she isn't there or when we're both home and one or the other of us needs a short break, we can go there and be adults. If you have the space for this, I'd recommend it. It isn't being mean, it's just claiming a space for you.

    All in all, I'm trying to say that you aren't alone. Having a strong support system (which it sounds like you have) is a tremendous help...and remember that there are others out there who have gone through/are going through the same thing. NEVER be afraid to reach out. :)

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  5. Pretty good post. I just stumbled upon your blog and wanted to say that i have really enjoyed reading your blog posts. office cubicles for sale

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