I was born in a time when the work and home life balance was found in the gender roles. My father went to work, sometimes holding down two or three jobs at a time, while my mother mother stayed home with their six children. With the divorce, it was clear that while there was a balance in the household, neither of my parents felt the balance within themselves.

Growing up in a single parent household long before the term was coined, I saw first hand what happens when the balance shifts toward survival. While my mother did a magnificent job keeping us sheltered from the elements and the harsher realitites of life, she couldn’t always manage to keep food on the table. My aunts and other family members sometimes carrying the weight of that pulled the pendulum back toward the center, even if was just a smidgen.

Finding my own center became my responsibility when I moved away for college. But college life is not for that purpose. The initial baby steps of independence in any direction are for expansion, the spreading of wings. To redefine the edges of what is possible, it is necessary to obliterate the center. Without knowing the center, there is no balance.

My minds eyes never lost sight of all that is possible. Long past what is considered middle age, I know I have more behind me that I have in front of me, but I can still appreciate the wonder of a new beginning in a sunrise and how that comes after a sunset. But to capture the essence of a miracle, I have to temper it with reality.

I do work that I love in a company that is well aligned with my values. I have worked at jobs where the asks of more of me came in such small increments that I didn’t realize how much more they were getting until I realized I didn’t have enough of me for me. I have also worked for companies that knew that societal conditions left me with very few employment options. It was with one particular company that I learned to never give up the power the define my life goals.

The lessons of work and life balance has been a life long class of defining and redefining what matters and when. Who I was and what I wanted as an 18-22 year old is a whole world of diffence from who I am now, a woman in her 60’s. Much is talked about the balance of life, but that not really the issue, is it? Isn’t it more about letting ourselves define ourselves and what we want our lives to be about?

Life is fluid. High tide in one place is low tide in another. Just as there is a finite amount of water on the earth, there is a finite amount of energy flowing from a heart. But, unlike water, the energy of a heart can find replenishment in its core. Turning the energy inward. And, it is in the core of anything that the balance is found. That what defines it as the core. The center. And if the center holds, the balance is struck.