What’s Next?

My whole adult life I been meticulously planning. Planning for what, you ask?

Everything.

I have painstakingly planned and anxiously waited for event after event, always knowing I was 2 steps ahead of myself.

I’ve always known what projects at work I was striving for, how I needed to get them done, what was next. I’ve pinned our finances down to the dollar, always knowing exactly what percentage of our income was being saved. I’ve broke our savings into percentages to account for our miscellaneous financial goals. I’ve planned and replanned our future vacations, our house remodel, and even what our Christmas budget would be 6 months in advance.

I methodically planned out my school schedule throughout college, intertwining it down to the minute with my work and volunteering schedules. At one point during college, I was working 3 jobs including teaching a class and held a coordinator position for an on-campus non-profit. I wasn’t doing it because I was hurting for cash. I spread myself thin because I hated doing nothing.

After I graduated college, I got engaged, was planning a wedding, interning full time, and decided I wanted to get my Masters. Not just an MBA, or Masters of Accountancy which would have sufficed for my career goals, no. I wanted to go full super nerd. I wanted to get my Master’s in Taxation.

In hindsight, I should have ended my internship and pursued this degree before accepting a fulltime position, but what would have been the fun in that?

The last 4 years, as I welcomed substantial life changes like starting a big girl job, moving to a new city by myself, getting married, buying a home, undergoing a major dental reconstruction surgery, getting pregnant and becoming a mother, as well as overcoming the challenges I have faced in postpartum, I have done so while also being a grad student. I only allowed myself 3 months off school after having Ridge before I insisted on getting back to class. A decision that, by all accounts, was a huge mistake. The workload compounded with other stressors to eventually trigger what I now know as stress-induced psychosis symptoms.

Last week, I took my very last final. And yesterday I found out I passed my graduate exam, and I have completed my master’s program.

I am proud of myself.

Rarely do I get to say that and believe it, but this time it’s true. I am so proud. I did this, I worked so hard for this.

For the first time in my adult life, I don’t have a “what’s next” career goal.

I’m done with school. I don’t feel like my position is stagnant, and still have so much learning and challenge in my current role. I am happy with my job.

You’ll be shocked to hear this, as I am shocked to admit it, but I think it’s time to stop spreading myself so thin. Instead of pouring energy into new ventures/projects, what if I poured back into myself?

I’ve spent the last year and a half of motherhood depriving myself of attention, and now that the distraction is gone, what if I attended to myself the way I should have been all along? What if the answer to “whats next?” is ME. I am next.

As a parent, it is 100x easier to do something for your child than it is to do for yourself. As a spouse, its only 50x easier to do something for your significant other than it is to do for yourself. (Sorry Reese, but you know it’s true)

Ridge, and Reese, deserve the absolute best version of me. I want them to have a mom/wife that’s loving, fun, supportive, emotionally stable, and physically able.

Right now, I am those things. But I am not the best I could be at those things.  

Action item number 1 - Get away and force a happy celebration.

I’ve worked my butt off for the past 4 years, I deserve to start this new era with a bang. So this weekend, I’m leaving. I’m driving 45 minutes away, by myself, and just RELAXING. No cleaning, no cooking, no laundry, no work, nothing. I’m going to do what I want to do, for 48 hours.

Whether that involves going to target or eating a burrito in bed and watching teen romcoms, well, that’s none of your business.

I am working on true self-care. Self-care that expands further and deeper than weekly sessions with my therapist or occasional face masks. This self-care is going to be for me, for truly bettering myself, so that I know that I am doing everything in my power to give Ridge, and Reese, the version of me I want them to know. The version of me that I want to know.

Recycling this picture from my college graduation because its fitting