A fair warning: there is nothing rocket sciencey about the following statements.

At all. Clearly. I just used the word sciencey.

The relationship between age and experience is a bit of a jerk.

As you get older, you hope you gain more experience. With this experience, you are able to take advantage of more opportunities- for personal and professional growth.

In parallel, as you get older your life becomes more complicated, with responsibilities and relationships placing greater demands on you. Marriages, children, extended families all having more needs as time moves.

So just at that point where you’re in position to really take some big leaps professionally, your personal demands are pulling you in a sometimes conflicting direction.

See- jerk move. And not at all rocket sciencey.

It wouldn’t be growth if it didn’t come with an element of challenge or discomfort or conflict…

But finding a way every day to still push yourself in both realms, while also allowing yourself to say ‘enough; I’m done with pushing today.’

And deciding when you want to compartmentalize the segments of your life vs blending it all up.

I know there are plenty of people advocating for the ‘how could you even imagine separating things in your life? If you love what you do for a job, it is your life, alongside your family and your exercise, and your rest…’ way. And at some points that does make things more efficient, transitioning without fuss or recalibration from one world to the next. At other points I think my circumstances lately have just forced me to separate, because what I feel like I’m being pushed for, both personally and professionally, are challenging and intense and very different from one another right now. It’s refreshing and stimulating and exciting, but just not always lending of itself to a blended life.

So today my day has shifted from my usual early morning work world at home with a jug of coffee…. To an unexpectedly early interruption from cute sleep-face kid #2. Launched into the typical morning-readying scramble. To a short pause (and stop off for a delicious Flat White) to do some emails before heading to cute kid#1’s school for a family walk for some save-the-kids fundraiser ( I should have fit in time to read about it so I knew wtf I was walking for.), then it’ll be a mad dash up to work world. And then a complete arsehole move to go out on the town- the the GD RANGERS game 7. Arse.hole. And so excited.

Then Sunday a departure for meetings next week in a generic (maybe i’ll be surprised?) mid-west town.

And on the cycle goes. Like it does for so many of us. And I’m so grateful that we’re at a time where this is the kind of stuff to be consumed by. Normal day-to-day balancing  stuff.

We’re doing alright.