How did I get here from there and where the heck do I go now??

My story is a little different in that I was a single, working mom for 6 1/2 years. My last job posting had my daughter and I living in Bangkok, Thailand where I was working as a program manager for an aerospace company. Then I met and married the man who is now my husband, and we moved back to the US - Atlanta, GA specifically - to start a new life as a family.

It seemed to make the most sense for me to take at least a year off to get us all situated and adjusted to our new lives....I was finally getting the chance to be the stay at home (SAH) mom that I had always envied! This would be awesome!!!!!

Talk about an identity crisis - it took me a full year (and many emotional breakdowns) just to learn how to be that woman and to be ok with it - and I was still chafing to get back to work.

Then the summer came and we had so much fun! For the first time EVER, there were no day camps, babysitters, or nannies, I just rolled with it and instead of feeling overwhelmed and guilty all summer - we had a blast! My husband is a consultant and was able to take time for us to take mini-vacations and hang out, Belle and I went to the pool often, had play dates, made new friends and strengthened existing friendships, and most importantly tightened our bond as a family. Maybe I was cut out for the SAH mom thing after all.....

The first clue really should have been the PTA book fair - I was one of three co-chairs and when we started I was very mellow about it all - have fun and make money for the school, what could be better? Somewhere during it all, it became a PROJECT like the many that I had managed during my career and the driven, overachieving Kim came out of stasis. I will say to my credit that I was able to step back and know when I should let one of my (wonderful) co-chairs talk to a vendor or volunteer who wasn't doing what they promised since it's (apparently) not politic to take volunteers to task. The Book Fair was a huge hit and we did have a lot of fun but the stage was set....

As I mentioned, my husband is a consultant. He picked up a short term gig as a Program Manager for an airline and it was a huge project (and incidentally what I did in my previous professional life)...inside I was salivating and green with envy. I pumped him for details, offered (unsolicited and unnecessary) suggestions, and was generally a pain in the ass. As I was emphatically demanding more information one evening, so irrationally mad that I was in tears, it occurred to me that I was trying to live vicariously through him - a definite A-HA and AH-SHIT moment.

So the writing is on the wall - I have to get back to work! But I've also finally found the joy in being a SAH mom and I'm not willing to give that up entirely - how do I find the balance? That's I've been noodling on for the past 6 weeks or so since my epiphany and what I was thinking about on the morning that Diane and I were walking and talking.

Where do I go from here and how do I get there? There's no roadmap for what I want to accomplish. And what is it exactly that I want to accomplish?

Diane summed it up perfectly...I want to ROCK!

And I suspect that we aren't the only ones.

So... where do we go from here?? by Diane

Ditto Kim!! Just as glad as I was to find that I wasn't the only one who wished to get back into the workforce, I think we were both stymied on where to start. "What do you want to do with your life?" echoes in my mind every morning when I wake up. As powerful and successful as I used to be before I left the workforce, and as wonderful as I am at being a stay-at-home (SAH), it is still difficult to answer that question.

I recently accompanied my husband on a long weekend business conference. In the evenings, the company would have us all out for cocktails and then dinner. I was surprised by how much fun it was to talk to people about the business again. I was actually able to hold a conversation about something other than homework and head lice epidemics at school! Phew, I really am an adult after all!

Going on that trip, while I know that there is still a lot that I have to do, find that old PC with my resume, for one, I finally figured out what I want to do.... I want to ROCK!!

You mean I'm not the only one?? by Kim

Diane and I were walking one morning a few weeks ago (a future post about my newly discovered need for Spanx will elaborate on the walking thing), and talking about our ambivalence about going back to work. We’re both ready to regain the professional self that we used to be, adding to the wife and mommy selves that we have been for the past several years.

After reassuring each other multiple times that this desire isn’t a reflection of any sort discontent with our family life or the choices that we have made, we started talking about our efforts to rejoin the workplace as we had left it and discovered…that we have NO idea how to go about it, where to start or really even what we want to do when we go back. Plus random things like:

Do I remember how to interview as the confident, successful professional woman that I was when I left? Because I suspect that these days I will be more like the awkward, sweating, bright red (I'm a blusher) mess that I was when I first graduated from college and was looking for my very first job.

Are the professional contacts I used to have even still around, it's been a while.

Am I willing to work the way that I used to? Probably not

What will my kids think? More importantly, are they going to develop psychological complexes and juvie records that add to the burgeoning case of maternal guilt that I'm already facing for even considering this move?

Will my husband rally and truly help or will I have to kill him?

Where did I pack my business clothes away?

Are shoulder pads still in style? (Just kidding, of course they are.)

What did I do with the old PC that my last known resume was on? I'm pretty sure that I gave it to Goodwill....WTH do I do now?

Sorry for this Diane, because I wouldn't wish it on anyone...but it felt great to know that I wasn’t the only one feeling the pressure of wanting something that I couldn’t entirely define and the frustration of not knowing how to attain it.

Our conversation ended that day with a shared commiseration that it was a shame we weren’t bakers or we could open our own cupcake shop and be done with it!

Who we are and what we aim to do

Welcome to our blog!

We are a couple of formerly successful business women who were lucky enough to be able to leave the workforce for several years to raise our children... children who are now old enough to take care (for the most part) of themselves, which begs the question; "what are we going to do with our lives??"

We saw that there was really a need out there for women, who have been out of their field for several years, to have access to information about how to transition back into their industry, how to prepare your family (and girlfriends) for your return to the workforce, and, consequently, how to squeeze back into those business suits.

We are, after all, many women in one package: wife, mother, friend, woman. How we re-package and re-purpose ourselves is up to us!