Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Trying to find a balance

I am a working mom, but sometimes I wish I could just quit my job and focus solely on taking care of my babies and having a clean house.

I don't know how many hours a week I work because I've never calculated really, but it's a lot.  As a freelance court reporter, I never know where I'm going to be working from one day to the next, and I will basically always have a backlog of pages to edit.

I have work hanging over my head every second of my life.  It's like endless homework.  As soon as I finish one transcript, it's on to the next one...sometimes without even taking a breath.  I basically fall asleep every night with my laptop on my lap or right beside me.

I have a great career in most aspects, but being that I'm self-employed, I don't get the perks of having a regular job.  I don't have set hours.  I can't clock in and clock out.  Health insurance costs a bloody fortune.  And I have to pay additional taxes.

On the plus side, I can pretty much decide what days I want to work.  When I'm not in a deposition, I can be in my pajamas and working on my couch if I want to.  Best of all, court reporting can be very lucrative.  But working at home and being a procrastinator do not mix AT ALL.  And while I have made strides in time management and sticking to deadlines, it is still really, really hard and stressful for me.

The cleanliness of my house suffers.  I can't commit to volunteer at my kids' school, and that bugs me.  More often than not, if you ask me what I am doing, my response is "Working."

It's not cool to have to put your job above everything else in your life...and sometimes I have to.  For example, when we went away last summer, the day before we left I took a rush job...and I spent at least the first three days of my vacation stuck inside, typing away on my laptop while my family was at the beach.  That sucked...hardcore.

All in all, I'm happy that I chose this career and I'm grateful that I'm good at it....but sometimes I dream of just being a person who pumps gas or something monotonous and mindless like that.

Right this very minute I have locked myself in my car because I have a job that needs to be turned in this afternoon...and if I go in the house, I know that I will sit on the couch and pass out from sheer exhaustion.

Such is the life of a court reporter I guess...

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