American Dream
I just stepped off of the plane onto the familiar ground that is my home. My two kids and husband were waiting for me with a big homemade sign that read “Welcome Home Mommy!” It had been four months since I had seen my kids and they had grown so much in the short time I was away. I dropped my stuff and ran towards them and scooped them into my arms and held them for a good five minutes. Then I got to my husband “Hi Honey,” he said as he gave me a big kiss, it was so great to be back in his arms again. My husband picked up my belongings grabbed my hand and we began walking to the car, I was holding Emma, my youngest, in my arms and Dax, my five year old was holding my hand. It was lovely to have my family back together again. When we got home Logan, my husband, started making my favorite dinner and I went and played with my kids. Emma and Dax wanted to show me everything they had accomplished in the last four months, which was a lot. Emma, who had just turned four, had started her first dance class and she showed me all of her adorable ballet moves and even made me do them with her. She then showed me all of her artwork that she created at daycare while Daddy was at work, which primarily consisted of rainbows, dogs, ponies and pink. My son, a baseball player in training, decided to show me how he can now throw the ball “really far” and accidentally broke one of the pictures on our wall, but I didn’t mind at all because I was honestly impressed with how far he managed to pitch it for his small size. I was having such a great time with my kids until I realized how much of their lives I was missing out on and I became sad. I got up, walked into the kitchen where my husband was and gave him a big hug from behind. “I’ve missed you,” I whispered in his ear. He turned around and said “I’ve missed you too darling; you’ve been gone for too long.” I couldn’t help but feel guilty when he said that and I think he noticed. “What’s wrong?” I told him what was running through my mind, “I feel horrible, I’m never home anymore now that I’ve gone back to work and I’m missing out on everything important in our lives.”
“Don’t think like that, this is your job you knew you were going to have to go back eventually”
“You’re right, but I didn’t imagine it was going to be as hard as this.” It started about ten years ago; I had just graduated from college and had gotten a job at a major publishing company. One day I asked my boss to check out some of my sample pieces, just for feedback, and he really loved what he saw so he sent it to the CEO of the company. The CEO didn’t