How To Build A Life You Don’t Want To Run Away From

I just came off a wonderful vacation with my family. First half of the week was supreme relaxation. In pajamas all day, watching movies, eating popcorn and sleeping til noon. The second half of the week was spent exploring Washington D.C., seeing all the cool museums and monuments.

I really, really needed that break. Work has been steadily building and I’m finding myself with more to do than I realistically have time for. So it was necessary to take a breather, regroup, and refocus.

While on vacation, I thought a lot about how my life is going (am I happy?) and what I need to do to make the good parts of my life more permanent and the bad parts less relevant. I’ve reached the place where I am no longer questioning every little decision I make about parenting these two little children in my care. I’m not stressing over whether or not my marriage is working, because it is. I’ve graduated graduate school so that’s one less thing on my to-do list.

So when I’m thinking about success, it boils down to three things:

• Having options
• Having a healthy, happy family
• Having peace of mind

All three of those are interconnected. It’s hard to have just one without the other two tagging along. Let me break it down even further.

Having options

The first time I realized I had options was when I had to tell my boss that I was pregnant with my second child. I’ll never forget how she sat back in her chair and looked a bit disappointed. “Will you be coming back to work?” she asked.

Until that very second, becoming a stay-at-home mom had NEVER occurred to me. NEVER. Like, who quits their job just because they’re having a baby? That’s not how the women in my family did it. If anything, having an extra mouth to feed meant you better keep on working!

But that question got me thinking about what I really wanted and whether working full-time with an hour commute each way was really how I wanted to spend the next decade or so. For many of us, “options” are a luxury and we’re simply doing what we can to survive. What can we do to gain control over how our lives are designed?

Having a healthy, happy family

If my kids aren’t happy, I’m not happy. If they are struggling in some area, I’m struggling. I’m only as happy as my least happy child. Our lives are so interconnected that they have to be functional for me to be functional.

Having peace of mind

When I was younger, I’d hear older women using that phrase all the time. “I need some peace of mind,” they’d say to each other, using commiserating after a long day at work. And I didn’t know what they meant. But I do now. It’s that feeling you get when your mind is calm, your energy is balanced and your home base is a welcoming sanctuary. It’s when you’ve got no worries. That’s not to say that you don’t have any problems, but those problems are not your focus. Your focus is on remaining level, on not getting too high or too low.

So that’s what I need in this life to be happy, to not feel like I need to escape and run away to some deserted island every three days. I’m getting close to having all three of these — are you?