I had an epiphany this week. This mother of all penny drops didn’t occur while I was breathing calmly and rhythmically through my nose, the Headspace guy chiming soporifically in my ears. It didn’t happen while I was om-ing and ah-ing in downward dog. It didn’t even happen while I serenely scattered seaweed dust over my morning oat-milk, sugar free, decaf latte; smiling beatifically as I prepared my high-protein, low-carb breakfast of avocado and bee pollen. Nope. This thunder-brain-bolt happened while I was sprinting ungainly through London Bridge station, my backpack thumping unhelpfully and shell-like as I panted like a wild woman, zipping between meandering commuters shrieking “excuse me” between breaths. As I lolloped up the stairs, cursing my granny knees, I watched my train glide irritatingly out of the station. Observing this, while also getting a bit sweary, I realised just how perilous my work commute is. My Charing Cross train was delayed by four minutes. Not a lot. Not the kind of delay that makes headlines or justifies wailing at the sky (people did look a bit alarmed). But those four minutes meant I missed my connecting train by seconds; which meant I had to wait twenty-five minutes for the next train; which meant I skidded into nursery ten minutes late, the eyebrows of the nursery staff practically in their hairlines as I had to sign a late-fee form and guiltily slink out with the absolute last child to leave the building. And it’s not just my evening trains that I’ve got timed down to the minute. I arrive at nursery in the mornings, fling Edie out, lob the pushchair in the shed and speed walk/gentle jog to the station to make my train. If I leave the house just a few minutes later than usual, because Edie has decided to throw a one-more-crumpet tantrum or mimic limp spaghetti while I squeeze her into her coat, I’m destined to lurch onto the platform with a damp top lip and deranged hair, as the frantically beeping doors close behind me.
I know none of this sounds particularly enlightening. It sounds stressful and a bit sweaty. But as I waited impatiently for the train on a windy platform 4, it dawned on me that this meticulously timed commute; this oh so fine balance of skidding onto trains at the absolute last minute as I desperately try to keep both the people I work with and the people who look after my child, including said child, happy, might for now be the ‘best’ I can hope for. And that doesn’t mean I’m failing and it doesn’t mean I should feel guilty. Every time I speak to mum friends I hear the same thing; how hard and wretched and conflicting being a working parent is. Childcare is the c-word of the parenting world. I’ve been formally back at work for over a year now, but I still oscillate wildly between feeling like I’m doing great and simultaneously perpetually on the back foot – stretched bubblegum thin as I tear myself into smaller and smaller pieces to tick all the boxes of Successful Working Parent. The reason I’ve persevered is because I have a job that I love and I genuinely believe I’m setting a good example to my daughter about the validity of my work. But in a way I’m proving a perverse point to myself, every day, that I’m physically capable of doing it all without falling apart. I thought I’d hit the work-life balance sweet spot when it all felt easy – when I’d waft between work meetings and nursery at a leisurely pace, skim the news headlines on the train in the mornings, eat homemade and nutritious salads at lunch, finish all my emails and admin at work, exercise once Edie had gone to bed and eat dinner at a civilised hour. Compared to what I was striving for, my own routine felt haphazard and erratic. I told myself that I might not be failing, but I certainly wasn’t passing with flying colours.
And here comes the epiphany.
Maybe there’s no such thing as a work-life balance which actually feels easy? Maybe to achieve balance, I’ll always be just making it work; making appointments and deadlines and trains by the skin of my teeth. That teeny tiny adjustment of perspective has lifted the dead weight I’ve been shouldering for 13 months; a weight of absurd ambition based on unnecessary and unfounded comparison to other parents. There will be days where I go to work and I’m creative and powerful and brilliant. But there’ll also be days where everything seems insurmountable and I fall at every hurdle. The difference in this little epiphany, delivered on a cold, metal bench, is that I’m now okay with both.