balance

Balance. Do you got it?  I sure don't.

When I was single I was always seeking a balance between friends/family and work.  Being introverted my default was always to be alone.  I'd wake up, start working then work until I went to bed.  Exciting, no?  I loved it, though.  My work hours were erratic and certainly not the regular 9 to 5, but I loved working nonstop, uninterrupted for hours on end.  I thank my years in architecture school for that.  During these last six years of entrepreneurship/singleness I intentionally scheduled time with people otherwise I'd allow myself to be a hermit.  I'd say the single me found a pretty happy medium… and it worked for six years.

Then there was this thing called "wedding planning". Just a month ago I was struggling.  I didn't know how to manage all the different aspects of my life.  I was planning a wedding, packing up my life, and trying to work/editing/shoot all in the throes of the holidays.  And I got the flu for a couple of weeks.  (Woe is me, right?  For reals.)  It was hard, real hard, and I totally failed at it.  I think there should be group counseling for brides planning their wedding.  Wedding planning put me at a stress level I'd never known so during that time, you'd better believe finding balance was a far off fairy tale.  Thankfully I'm so happy I got through that time, slightly less sane, but through it nonetheless.  And marrying Lance was the best happy ending.

But aside from that four month blip of wedding planning, I always sought to find balance in my life.  Being married put a new perspective on it all.

I love being married, and I especially love Lance & my setup.  Most mornings as Lance leaves for work, I muster some energy to pull myself out of bed and get ready for the day.  I'll go around tidying the house and doing laundry.  (We have an insane amount of laundry… or rather, I have an insane amount of clothes.) Then I'll sit down with my hot beverage and morning yogurt and start working.  I love that we live on campus where Lance works so we get to eat our lunches and dinners together. Yay. Even though Lance accommodates me whenever I need to work at night or on weekends, I try for the most part to be present and turn off work-Meg when he's home.  It's been nice to create some boundaries between work and home.

But I encountered a dilemma.  I basically work when Lance works, which added up to 40-50 hours a week, even though when we weren't married I worked 80-90 hours a week.  So how would I fit in those extra 40 hours of work?  I presented this dilemma to a friend, who was a mom of three young kids and also an entrepreneur, and her response was hopeful and encouraging.  She said, "As you move through these life stages and feel like you have less and less time to work, you'll learn to adjust.  You'll learn to finish tasks so quickly you'll question why it took you so long in the first place.  You learn to hustle." Upon hearing that I felt so much peace.  She reminded me I didn't have to have everything figured out right now, but over time I'd get my bearings.  So that's it. I haven't found the perfect balance between work and life as a wife, yet, but I will. woot.

p.s. Married life is awesome.

Downtown Salt Lake City, Utah. January 24, 2015. | Fuji x100s