There’s life changers that are really obvious and turn your entire life on its ear (like the day I came home with twins), and then there are the subtle changes that you don’t really notice until you have some reason to look back. At that point it sometimes makes you wonder “Who am I?”
The other day I was texting with a friend and we were discussing work, jobs, next steps and the path that got us there. We've been friends since we were about 15, moved to the city around the same time, spent our 20s putting in 50+ hours a week at the office, trying to establish ourselves in careers, and spent weekends bar hopping, drinking too much and making some questionable decisions. Eventually we started spending weekends in, got married (me, not him), moved, got new jobs, kept working a million hours a week (does that stop?), had twins (me again) and once in a while we manage to not have meetings on the same day and we meet for lunch.
So as we were discussing careers and the general trajectory of said careers I was whining about not being able to find a new suit, which can be shocking because I work near Michigan Ave. in Chicago, and I texted, “Between meetings, yoga and work I haven’t had time to shop so I impulse bought a Cynthia Rowley jacket this weekend and still need a fucking suit.”
This stopped me dead in my tracks.
Not because it sounds totally spoiled and crazy (because I’m aware it does), but because I realized I am becoming that woman. I am the woman who has a closet full of blazers that pair with statement necklaces. I get my nails done on lunch hours, do yoga, eat organic and consider a smoothie a full meal. I wear giant black sunglasses, carry a bag that could fit a small human or a mid-size dog and check my work email at all hours of the night and on weekends. Now with two little kids I feel like I have become some kind of suburban cliché, but from a Tim Burton film.
You can’t truly be a cliché if you’re in on the joke, right?
Just as I’m staggering at this vision of myself and start to get the sweats thinking I've sold out and become some kind of faceless Corporate Barbie, I realize that I forgot to put the laundry in the dryer and I trip over the pile of shoes and boxes spilling out of my closet like some kind of spiky, leather and colored vomit.
Dress me up in suits and give me all the kale smoothies you can handle, you don’t have to go too far to find that driven girl who works hard and plays hard and spends all her money on shoes. I’m still kind of a disaster, but now I get to break more expensive things.
The other day I was texting with a friend and we were discussing work, jobs, next steps and the path that got us there. We've been friends since we were about 15, moved to the city around the same time, spent our 20s putting in 50+ hours a week at the office, trying to establish ourselves in careers, and spent weekends bar hopping, drinking too much and making some questionable decisions. Eventually we started spending weekends in, got married (me, not him), moved, got new jobs, kept working a million hours a week (does that stop?), had twins (me again) and once in a while we manage to not have meetings on the same day and we meet for lunch.
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| Closet vomit. I seriously need to get this under control. |
This stopped me dead in my tracks.
Not because it sounds totally spoiled and crazy (because I’m aware it does), but because I realized I am becoming that woman. I am the woman who has a closet full of blazers that pair with statement necklaces. I get my nails done on lunch hours, do yoga, eat organic and consider a smoothie a full meal. I wear giant black sunglasses, carry a bag that could fit a small human or a mid-size dog and check my work email at all hours of the night and on weekends. Now with two little kids I feel like I have become some kind of suburban cliché, but from a Tim Burton film.
You can’t truly be a cliché if you’re in on the joke, right?
Just as I’m staggering at this vision of myself and start to get the sweats thinking I've sold out and become some kind of faceless Corporate Barbie, I realize that I forgot to put the laundry in the dryer and I trip over the pile of shoes and boxes spilling out of my closet like some kind of spiky, leather and colored vomit.
Dress me up in suits and give me all the kale smoothies you can handle, you don’t have to go too far to find that driven girl who works hard and plays hard and spends all her money on shoes. I’m still kind of a disaster, but now I get to break more expensive things.
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