By Mavian Arocha-Rowe
When mom used to come to mind, perhaps visions of mini vans mixed with old-school fashion or the always distracted and never-on-time woman played on the mental stage. Today, we see visions of Beverly Goldberg, fast and the furious mompreneurs, and Pioneer Woman meets contemporary Martha Stewart, all in one.
Where do you fall? Do you work the nine to five grind with or without regrets or did you turn in the heels for running shoes once you became mom, with or without regrets?
Can you be all things? If you want to, or you can choose to focus on being a couple of things. Do you want to start an at-home business? Are you eager to take your child to story time yet help in bringing home the bacon while meeting the sense of satisfaction as you put your degree, talents, and experiences into action?
I am very blessed to work from my home office where the scents of essential oils and Hanae Mori spring in the air, and I’m still able to grab a whiff of hurricane Rio as he chases after rolling cans of food or unrolls toilet paper across the floor. Or best of all, I can watch him at his young age of 18 months, aim to type and play phone as he imitates his Mamma.
Please don’t get confused, at-home doesn’t necessarily mean more flexibility. It means being on constant multi-task mode and sacrificing hour lunches or venting sessions with the girls in the office to get your job done.
It means being focused and determined at the expense of losing some sleep in order to get the best use of quiet time. I am not suggesting you burn the midnight oil every night, but once a week or every other week my choice to work till midnight or one in the morning is beneficial for me.
This past week rather than signing my emails, have a good day or wishing you a good day, I decided to write the words: Choose to have a GOOD day. Why? Simple. Our lives require choices. I may wish you good, hope for your success, but if you aren’t determined to cherry-pick your plan of action, we’re simply looking at encouraging words full of fluff.
Answer this: How do you characterize your curb appeal versus your character appeal? Take the step of vulnerability and perhaps share with a close friend the stuff under your fluff. You see, we all have stuff and a dangerous place to be is where we believe our curb appeal, aka our fluff. What or how much fluff is paralyzing you from achieving a better you with character appeal?
I start this series of articles for moms—mompreneurs, working moms, stay-at-home moms—all moms who have the responsibility of raising children and choose to not ignore their sense of duty to live a life of chispa. The word chispa when translated from Spanish to English means lively [as a verb] and spark [as a feminine noun], both very essential to ignite passion and fire to our roles, life’s assignments, and seasons. As we embark on this journey together, with baby, toddler or teenage steps, I’ll be asking some tough questions.
My final one, for now: What do you want?