Baby steps

I made HUGE progress today in my newly resolved efforts to balance my time and stress level and to assert control over the rampant illegal immigration across the border seprating my work and family life.

I turned off my cell phone at 6:00 pm last night. OFF. For the whole night.

This is unheard of in my life. I brought my cell phone to the hospital during both my kids births. I put 2 houses into escrow while recovering from my first C-section. I bring it on vacation, I bring it into the bathroom. I have SERIOUS cell phone attachment disorder, brought on by a neccesity of keeping up with a demanding career, needful clients, and constant pressure of deadlines, paperwork, contracts, inspections, diclosures, financing, meetings, property tours, marketing, etc. It never ends.

But now that my kids and husband and overall health are actively paying the price, it has to stop. And so it did - at the reasonable hour of 6:00 pm. And the cell phone stayed off for 12 hours.

Of course, my clients all then called me at home - -but being as committed as I am to this goal, I IGNORED THEM and responded to all their needs via email only after we enjoyed dinner (which I cooked!) as a family, my darlings were bathed, read to and safely tucked in for the night.

And you know what?

The world didn't end. There was no apocalypse. There was no lightening strike or thunder clap.

Granted, my clients and colleauges were frustrated. They were relentless in their pursuit of me by email, pager and phone, evidenced by the 12 messages I found on my cell phone when I finally did turn it back on at 7:00 am this morning. Everyone was a fair bit exasperated not to have my immediate rapt attention (even at 11:11 pm and 5:52 am this morning, which were some of the times messages were left). Sigh.

So, people are unhappy, or angry, or frustrated with me. That is the residual damage I expected from this process of restoring my healthy work/life balance. So be it. My children and husband know that Mom values them above all else, even to the exlusion of the money I could make by allowing blanket unfettered work-related intrusion into our family time and private lives. That is worth any amount of residual damage I encounter. In fact, BRING IT ON - as to me, it's almost like a badge of honor I am now wearing proudly. Even when my professional life is uniformly grumbling about my newly imposed "restricted" business hours, I know I am doing the right thing by my family and that it where my heart must reside.

And you know what else? I finally got my shower.