How Did I Get Here?

Every now and then, I look around at my life and wonder, in the immortal words of the Talking Heads in the song "Once in a Lifetime" -- "How did I get here?"

Today I was dropping my son off at preschool -- rushing in and out in time to get back on the road and make it to work on time, just like the other mommies -- when I couldn't stop wondering how I fit in with these harried women. I have so many different images of myself in my head that sometimes the vision and the reality don't match up.

I often feel like I did in college when there was never enough time or money to do everything that I wanted or needed to do. I had to choose between watching TV or doing homework or between putting gas in the car or buying a shirt. I did both, but I charged the shirt. But now, I sit at my desk writing checks for my first and second mortgages and I wonder how on Earth I convinced not just one, but two companies, to lend me hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy anything. How did I get here?

On other days, I'm at the park with my son watching another mother with her child, feeling completely disconnected from the scene playing out in front of me, and then Jack yells, "Mommy, mommy, look!" That's when I think, "Wait, I'm just like her. Really?"

Of course, I have days when all the images I have of myself fit together perfectly. I get to be a mommy in the morning, a professional journalist all day, a wife and mommy in the evening, and sometimes I even get out without husband and child in tow so that I can be a friend and the kind of independent woman that I still feel like I am. I guess, even at 34 years old, I'm still reconciling all the parts of my multifaceted life.