Down for the Count

I am sick as a dog. Interestingly, apparently my sister is sick too, and I didn't even know it until I read her post. No wonder we haven't talked to each other the past few days. We've both been throwing up.

I woke up for work on Thursday at 4:00am, and felt like crap. However, I thought that it was just because I'd been getting up at 4am all week, in order to make it in by 5am and working until 5 or 6pm, only to come home - take care of the kids - and then get back on the computer to work some more. You see, I work for a major financial firm (that is still around and not in trouble - thank God), and I've been the project manager on a risk mitigation project involving exactly what is happening in the market right now. 'Nuff said.

By the time I was sitting in my third meeting of the day around 8:30am, it was all I could do to keep from barfing into the garbage. The best part was that the CEO of my firm was in the meeting. I couldn't decide whether it would be a good or bad career move to toss my cookies in front of my CEO. Would he think "Wow, she's really upset about the market, and cares deeply about our firm.", or "What the hell is she doing in the office getting the rest of us sick too.". I decided I needed to get the heck out of there.

Clearly I caught the flu or something. No surprise my immune system was compromised by lack of sleep and stress. What I can't figure out, is how all these Managing Directors that I've been working with all week seem just fine. I mean seriously, their minds are sharp, they're energetic and they seem rested - and there is no way they are getting much more sleep than I am. I don't get it. I guess that's why they are Managing Directors charged with determining the future of our firm...and I'm not.

And thank God I'm not, because I decidedly can not do it all. I feel like I'm constantly struggling to be the best I can be in Motherhood, my career and my marriage. One or two of those always seem to suffer for the sake of the other. In general, my career has definitely taken the "mommy track", and I'm just fine with that. I chose the job and assignments I have now because of the flexibility it allows me. Usually, that is. This particular project was supposed to be a two week temporary assignment... I've been around my firm long enough to know that it would probably be longer than that, but I never thought it would turn this high profile and this intense. Who knew the market would get this crazy? Oh yeah, my brother-in-law. He's been predicting dooms day for about a year now. I guess that's why he is a Managing Director at another major financial firm (that is also still around, and also not in trouble - thank God). I was always thinking he was just being a pessimist, and it wouldn't get that bad. Huh. Guess he was right.