I have been thinking a lot lately about how I spend the (little) time I have. This is not a new topic for me. In addition to working full time and having an amazing and exhausting high energy 2 1/2 year old, I have a couple things I really love to do. Blogging, writing, knitting. I also have a strong interest in marketing, communication and politics. I love my job and I love taking on new things.

Since moving to New West, it feels like opportunities to do more of what I love keep knocking on my door. Just a sampling of some of those things include: hearing about a local knitting group I want to join, getting to write a post about local issues related to family for a great New West blog, opportunities to volunteer and get more involved in the community and invites to community events. I have also come up with some ideas of my own of ways I can see that I can leverage my interests and skills to contribute to various things that I know are happening in New West and beyond.

Sounds awesome right? Except there are only so many hours in the day.

There are three essential things you need to know about me:

1) I am not, by nature, a patient person. I have a tendency to want to do it all right now. Now. Now. Now. The idea of ‘I will do that in 5 years’ seems to me like telling myself that I won’t do it at all. 5 years? 5 years is FOREVER from now. In reality it is not, but it feels like it.

2) I have a horrible tendency to want to say “YES” to every interesting opportunity that presents itself. If it catches my interest and I think I could do it reasonably well, I want to try. If. it. kills. me. Every time I get asked that dreaded “What is your greatest weakness” question in an interview, that is it. I love to take on new stuff. But I have a hard time saying no. Every job I have ever had I have just collected job duties until they promote me.

3) I am also, by nature, the type of person that needs a reasonable amount of alone time to recharge. The very definition of an introvert (despite the tendency to believe it is someone who is shy- which I am not) is someone who needs to be alone in order to get their energy back, rather then someone who gets energized by being around people. I am very very very much an introvert. If I had my way, I would bask in at least an hour of pure alone time a day. I rarely get more then an hour or so of alone time a week.

The problem is that I can’t do all the things I want to do, right now, and still have time left to keep myself healthy by getting enough down time to re-charge. I just can’t.

Add to that the question of whether or not (and when) to have a second child. What if I get all involved in all sorts of things and then can’t maintain that through having an other kid? Do I want an other kid when (selfishly) there are all sorts of things I want to do? I haven’t even scratched the surface of the stuff I want to be doing, and yet if I were to get pregnant again I would be hard pressed to maintain what I am doing now with a newborn. So sometimes, the idea of having a second child seems synonymous with putting my life on hold.

You know that saying, “Women can have it all, just not at the same time.”

That’s what I feel like right now. Like I have to pick and choose what my priorities are and try and convince myself that the opportunities will still be there when kid (or kids) are a bit older. But. Then. But.

You know, it is so hard as women. (Not that men don’t have things that are hard too- the whole crappy society place men have right now where they are portrayed as useless around the house and still face huge pressure to be the ‘provider’? That kind sucks too.) It’s hard to figure out priorities and timelines and when to do what. And really, when it comes to family, often you just can’t plan. Women have babies before their ready or after they thought they were done. Other women can’t have them when they want to. You can’t, really, have the perfectly time plan. So you have to constantly make choices. You have to constantly balance and re-assess and try and make things work.

What makes that whole thing even more difficult is the biology of having a child.  We have this physical window between puberty and our mid to late fourty’s where our body’s can handle having a kid (yes I know, some women are having kids at older ages, but generally beyond about 45 the risk factors start really going up.) However,  the window, for most women, of at what age they would really prefer to have those kids, as it fits with being in a stable relationship and, perhaps, a stable career, is so so much shorter. We are talking 12ish-50ish yrs, a 38ish year time span, versus 25ish-40ish, a 15ish year time span. (Don’t get all offended by my very arbitrary time span, every women is different in terms of when they would prefer to have kids, but I think it is fair to say that there is a general societal norm around the ideal age to have kids.)

So, as women, we have this 18-30 year (remember, once we have those kids they grow up and take a considerable amount of parenting) time span where we are, essentially, trying to do it all. Have kids, raise a family, work outside or inside the home, run a home business or follow an other “non-traditional career” passion, engage in the community, volunteer, have a social life, pursue other hobbies, ect ect ect. We don’t want to wait on any one of those things; we want to feed all of who we are, not just one part.

So how do you decide? And how do you balance? And how do you accept you can’t do it all? Or do you try to do it all and just some. how. find. the. energy?