Guilt

I was writing on deadline today at work and had only one story to turn in by the end of the day. It wasn't a terribly complicated story, but I needed to turn it in and shut down my computer by 2:30 so that I could get to my son's Christmas party at daycare by 3 o'clock and take pictures of him sitting on Santa's lap. The self-imposed early deadline should have been easy to make.

Then, of course, I had a breaking news story that didn't have to be written right away, but my main source was available today, not tomorrow. And every time I got into a groove on the story that was due today, my phone rang. And then, before I went back to writing, I'd take a look at my e-mail and have a couple of messages that needed attention. So, when I finally got back to writing again, my phone would ring, and the vicious cycle continued.

At 2 p.m. when I still wasn't done writing, the mommy guilt started to kick in. Oh no! I'm going to be late! I'll miss Santa's big entrance! Santa was scheduled to arrive promptly at 3 p.m. Parents were instructed to show up by 2:45 so that we could get in position to see the kids' reactions -- and snap the requisite photos -- at the precise moment they heard Santa say his first, "Ho, Ho, Ho!"

I filed my story and turned off my computer at 2:35 and ran to my car thinking I'd have plenty of time to get there. It was too early in the afternoon to run into traffic, right? Oh, but of course there was traffic. Argh! If I hadn't checked e-mail and Facebook and read the newspaper while I ate my lunch, I'd be right on time! I gripped the steering wheel and gritted my teeth and willed the stop-and-go traffic to part like the Red Sea -- or like the scene in Bruce Almighty where Jim Carrey gets the traffic to part so that he can make it to work on time.

By the time I pulled off the Interstate at five minutes until 3 o'clock I was cursing myself. Damn it! Damn it! Damn it! And then I parked, grabbed my presents out of the car and hopped onto the sidewalk just in time to see Santa standing in the driveway talking to the daughter in the mother-daughter team that runs the daycare.

Ta da! I hurried into the house before Santa could make his way inside. And when I heard Jack shouting in excitement, "Mommy!" I felt all that guilt slide right off my shoulders -- even the guilt I felt at the start of the day when I informed my editor, who's working while on vacation, that I would be leaving an hour and a half early on a deadline day. Jack didn't care if I got there after almost all the other moms and dads; he just cared that I showed up.

I'm still proud that I made it there just in the nick of time, but I felt the guilt begin to pile on my shoulders again when we got home and I went to my computer to check the e-mail I missed after leaving work early.

The point, I guess, is that whatever choice you make, when you're trying to balance work and family and friends and your own well-being, is going to leave you feeling guilty for slighting one of those elements to satisfy one of the others, so if you focus on what's really important then all of the other things will somehow fall into place. The work will get done somehow, as it always does, but you can't make up for those little moments that make everything else seem unimportant.