White Belt for Life

Hi everyone,

Watch me bow in Korean martial arts class?

Okay, stop laughing and listen up: My awkward bow and these hottie-mc-hot-hot black pajamas are part of a tiny triumph for me this year. I'd like to share it.

I'm talking about my addiction to work. And no, I don't take that phrase lightly. This week's newsletter is about how these little black pajamas have changed my own world in the past year. My daily experience is slowly evolving from constant guilt over warring to-do lists (home versus work), unanswered email hell (from family, friends and colleagues), and a cell-phone implant into a life where I can actually focus on my children as they speak to me AND sleep through the night.

Not that a woman needs offspring to be pulled entirely off-kilter by technology. It happens to all of us: Earlier this month in a terrific post, BlogHer Contributing Editor Marianne Richmond quoted a Kathy Sierra post that I consider an all-time classic:

Excerpt from The Asymptotic Twitter Curve:

"We've all been at the brain bandwidth breaking point for the last five years. Email is out of control. IM'ing sucks up half the day. And how can we not read our RSS feeds, post to our blogs, and check our stats?

"...[W]e're all feeling the enormous weight of not being able to keep up. We can't keep up with work. We can't keep up with our social life. We can't keep up with the industry, our hobbies, our families. We can't keep up with current events. We'll never read a fraction of those books on our list. And we are hurting."

Amen. I hurt for years. From the time of my divorce at age 30 until a few years ago, at 36, my life revolved around two things: My son and my work online. For each of those years I overworked -- whether I was at home with him or had a job.

I slept five hours a night at most. I would get up at three or four a.m., turn on my computer, type like a madwoman until 6:05 a.m. when, "....mmmmMom?" Once my little boy was at pre-school and then school, I was at it again until 6 p.m. when I would break to pick him up, feed him, read us both a story, catch a few hours of sleep and then... begin again. I barely ate. I drank nothing but caffeine. I stopped exercising.

Emotions became rare, too, when I was with anyone but my son. I slipped away into a much grayer spirit than the woman who brought him into the world. A reactive, single-mom version of Betty Rubble, I existed to serve dinner and to feed the email beast. Only when three women sat me down in the same week--seven days, three separate come-to-Jesus meetings with the dearest friends in my life -- did I realize how completely empty I felt.

The lesson I learned? That life via email wasn't enough. That I needed to get alpha female on the technology in my life and show it who was boss. I needed to remember, as my CEO told me in 1999 when I couldn't hear her, that my cell phone was a tool for me to call out, not a homing beacon for people to hunt me down and suck me into their projects.

I started to change my life, sloooowly. While watching everyone else around me wire-up and plug-in, I learned that I needed to delve into the true meaning of ambition for me and my son. Did I want to communicate and be communicated with 24/7? I did not. I pined for electronic boundaries and wanted to lie facedown on my lawn with a beer in my hand. For days. I came out on the other side with a new definition of achievement for myself.

My new goals look very different from the career path I envisioned at 20. Turns out that the time involved in having the rich family life I insist on was utterly beyond my comprehension at the start of this road. Liz Phair is right:

Love is nothing, nothing, nothing like they say
You gotta get up and work the people everyday

I had no clue how many hours it takes to form close relationships with kids and a partner alongside a career. And I didn't realize what I wanted to give up in order to deliver on these relationships.

Note my terminology -- what I wanted to give up. Not had to give up. Not even needed to give up.

I decided to try to explain this after reading Surrender Dorothy's post, Who Does She Cry For? Dorothy wrote:

"Who saw Grey's Anatomy last night? And who bawled their eyes out when that little girl asked for her nanny instead of her mommy?

"And who wanted to kick Meredith for saying working mothers shouldn't have kids if they want high-powered careers? For not understanding that choices regarding work and motherhood are in fact sometimes choices between child and self?....

"Lisa Stone once told me she was afraid of her ambition....She's made choices, though, to be a good mother. She reminded me that you have to be careful not to get everything you want at the same time. How will you say no to any of it?"

By way of a long explanation as to why I wear black pjs, I answered Dorothy that, yes, it's true: I fear the forces that rip a working parent apart. Not from the outside -- but from the inside. A boss's to-do list I can handle, household chores as well.

But the terrifying suction I sometimes feel from the computer when I could be -- SHOULD be--playing crazy-eights with the kids in a hard-won happy home life is what scares me. Because I've been there.

While my road has taken some crazy crazy turns and even some roadkill, I also don't think a single decision or fork in the road (such as the job change Dorothy was considering in her Nov. 17 post) forever change a relationship with a child. Instead, I think it's much more insidious -- the drip-drip-drip of warring priorities between personal work and family work that make it possible to measure how your family measures up.

I predicted for Dorothy that if she got her new job, it would be damn hard -- and worth every minute if she can stay tuned in to ALL her goals -- those that involve her heart as well as her employer. Read her post -- I think it proves she'll be successful.

Today, my definition of success comes down to the fact that for three hours a week, I Stop Working. I walk away from the email. I shrug the world off my shoulders, put on the white belt worn only by rank beginners, and go be a kid with my kids.

While the boys are gracefully spin-kicking and chopping boards in half, I am re-learning what it is like to touch my toes and do a cartwheel.

Sometimes I fall.

Do you have a story about attention, warring priorities and technology in your lfe? I'd love to hear about it here. And I hope you have a wonderful holiday with the kids of all ages in your lives. I'm taking next weekend off (because I'm crazy like that) but I'll be back on Jan. 3 with another newsletter. And this time I'll be seeking your advice: I'm turning 40, what does that mean?

Best,

Lisa

Lisa Stone is a BlogHer Co-Founder. Her personal blog is Surfette.