I've been reading the new Mommy Wars book, which is not really about mommy wars at all but more about the wars we launch in our own heads over working and/or staying home. So I've been mulling over my own choices even more than usual. My current work/life situation comes down to a lot of fulfillment topped with a whopping helping of self-doubt. Is there any escape or is this just motherhood and career life for me?

After finishing my MFA in Creative Writing and trying out (and not enjoying) community college teaching for a short time, I worked my way from an entry-level copywriting position and into a higher position at another company, making $15,000 more a year than I started at three years earlier. That may not sound hugely significant to those of you with major league jobs, but for me, it was huge. Mostly cause it was more money than I had ever made, and I was unmarried and childless at the time. I was also making more money than my father and somewhere close to what my mother made only after 20 years in her position. This was weirdly shocking. I felt a great deal of pressure to be a responsible adult, to be as together financially as my smart budgeting parents who had worked hard for their lifetimes, evolved a good house into a lovely house, and had raised two kids into good adults. It didn't really feel good somehow. On the other hand, I could at last see the rewards of so much college and start applying them directly to my hefty student loans. There were times in these early years that I even felt successful, and even better, I liked the work. Sure, I wanted to move into something more creative than copywriting in the financial industry, but writing fun headlines and editing marketing materials with all my anal integrity was quite enjoyable. The freaky bosses and the 40-hour work week when I could have easily done my job in 30 or less? Those things I could have absolutely done without.

I bought my first car shortly after landing the position with a new plumper salary, and I took my Dad with me car shopping so he could, you know, protect me from car salesman bullshit, and when I went to fill out the credit application, the older salesman seemed surprised I was filling it out on my own. Now maybe it was because I have always looked a few years younger than I really am and maybe it was because I brought my Dad, but the salesman seemed overly shocked by my independent financial standing. My Dad told me later that the salesman had said to him, "That's pretty amazing that she can qualify on her own. That's great." My Dad looked proud. I wanted to check the calendar and see what year it was. It was only a Honda Civic, not a BMW, for God's sake, but I took the compliment anyway.

Fast forward to the present, and things changed quite a bit. My Honda's six years old now, but now it's strapped with an enormous carseat for my 3-year old Clyde. I also have a pretty great husband of over five years, and we're all living in our teeny tiny little 1920s dream home with two bedrooms, an office for me, a garage studio for him, and a basement for Clyde's outgrown baby paraphernalia, Ed's old paintings, old maternity clothes in waiting, all the makings off good creative projects I'm going to someday take on. My paid work has changed significantly as well. I quit the full-time, well-paying job when my son was just about two, and there were several reasons. One, I had negotiated to work Fridays at home for about a year, which meant one more day with my son, one less day of paying for daycare, and it went along splendidly. Then my boss revoked it when another employee had a child—afraid if she gave me the privilege, she'd have to give the privilege to others (so what!). Secondly, after two years of the highs and lows of this same intensely kooky and often paranoid boss, I really just wanted to be boss-free. But most of all, I wanted to take the leap into freelance work, first freelance copywriting and hopefully someday freelance editorial work—a job doing work I love without a boss and with flexible hours.

Having two people working the 40+-hour workweek and having full-time, full-of-responsibility jobs was becoming hard for us to handle as a family. Who misses their meeting when Clyde is sick? Who goes in a little late when he won't get dressed? Who takes him to the doctor for check ups? At the same time, my husband Ed had recently moved over to the position he had been working toward in his job—even though the pay and room for advancement was somewhat minimal—and it required regular travel to the Bay Area. It was clear a lot more of this stuff was going to fall on my plate. So it only made sense for me to change my job situation—since somewhere beyond losing my bigger salary, my chance to pursue my future goal of freelance writing from home sat in the wings. Of course, it has also become my job to make the tighter finances work since I'm bringing in a good $20,000 less a year now.

Now I work an easy and temporary part-time job as a research assistant on a medical study for full healthcare benefits for me and my son (my husband's employer offers benefits to his family for about $350 a month!!!), and it's five minutes from home and five minutes from my son's preschool where he goes two days a week while I work. I've been doing freelance copywriting the other half the time from home—usually during naptime or evenings and weekends when my husband is home. The idea was to do the part-time job (a two-year contract position) until I built up enough freelance work to afford the healthcare benefits through my husband's job. Of course, that hasn't really happened yet, and we're halfway in. This is partly cause I have to hide in the closet to take client phone calls outside of naptime and partly cause it's almost impossible to successfully balance work and a child throughout a full day at home. I can also try to blame a little on the fact that we settled in my hometown Sacramento, not exactly, eh em, the freelance capital of the world. Still, I can feel the self-doubt creeping in around the edges of this so-called balanced life. This perfect balance of family and "dream job."

So the other day, I am standing in Circuit City looking at digital cameras with the salesman, and Ed is chasing Clyde through the big screen TVs. I find the camera I want and decide it'd be a great plan to use their "one year same as cash deal" since our budget is tighter these days. Pay it off in a year. No interest. Good deal. I start the application process with the salesman. We are into the process a few minutes when the young geeky salesman asks me my occupation, and I stumble. I don't know what to say. I realize I don't really have an answer for him. I don't want to say I'm a research assistant because I'm so NOT a research assistant by any means. That would be lying. I don't even know my office phone number by heart because people use my cell phone to get ahold of me since I'm always working somewhere different. I want to say I'm a writer, but I can see the next question on the form is Employer Name and Address. I start looking around for my husband, of course, cursing the very act as I'm doing it. "Maybe you…you…should just run my husband's credit. He's been at his job a long time. I'm…I'm in transition." The salesman isn't fazed. I think they'd give credit to anyone in that place. He's still trying to talk me into giving him my part-time job info. He's offering to look up the phone number on the web. He doesn't really care that I used to make money and now I don't make as much. He doesn't care if I used to feel successful (or did I?) and now I feel like I'm flailing. He just wants his damn commission for the sale, his own mark of a day's success. It's me who feels like a fraud and failure. It's me that feels like I can't even qualify for a digital camera.

It all started welling up then. All the failures of my work life.

My older brother knew from the time he was four or five that he wanted to be a teacher, and he took all the steps and walked right up to that career without wavering. In fact, he surpassed it a little and is the principal of a brand new elementary school in his neighborhood now. I didn't really know until two years into community college that I liked to read. A lot. Sure, I always read a little, but I really got into it in college. I started to crave it. Bookstores became addictive and delicious. I wanted to explore a million authors and stories. And the reading just led me to the writing. I got my BA in English six years into college and got into grad school in Creative Writing two years later. I think of myself as a fairly focused person, but I'm also a person with an appetite for many creative things. When I'm writing, I wish I knew how to paint. When I'm reading a novel, I am thinking about poetry rolling off my tongue. When I am perusing blogs, I am dreaming of the beautiful photos I want to take to represent my own life and how someday they'll make a great show at the SF MOMA. And if only I could sew. Right now, I'm thinking about the pretty complexity of the chicken salad sandwich I'm going to make for lunch—each intricate, well-formed bite of toasted wheatberry bread, flavorful chicken, crunchy walnuts, creamy mayo, crisp lettuce.

What the hell am I doing? What about the finished novel sitting in the drawer? What about the first novel contests? The unfinished synopsis (okay, that's like a measly page!) promised three months ago to a friend with a friend in publishing? What about submitting some work to that magazine or that one or that one? What about actually writing something to submit? What about the blog I haven't written in for a few days? What about all the more creative copywriting jobs I haven't pursued? What about all the books I need to read? The cross-stitch obsession I wanted to cultivate? What about writing? Something, anything, just writing?

Today's excuse…motherhood. After reading part of the new Maybe Baby anthology and deeply relating to its section from people who have chosen not have children, I start to wonder if having a child has worked into the perfect excuse for my failed career. I wonder if I used motherhood as an excuse to back out of a career that wasn't going exactly where I wanted it to go. Will pursuing freelancing and getting stuck always needing a job for benefits turn into doing nothing that I really want to do? Again? Or maybe I'm just using motherhood and pursuing paid freelance work as excuses to avoid my creative work, my true passion, my real unpaid love. But maybe money is the only thing I can equate with success. Or maybe I'm just as confused now as I was in my first year of college and stared perplexed at the list of majors.

Okay, I'm getting off my piss pot now. I'm even going to give myself a little credit atop shedding all those inner fears. I am writing right now, this minute, am I not? I have several repeat freelance clients (mostly financial, but hell, it's paying the bills and keeping me out of the 9 to 5…) and after a few months of shell shock and some adjustments in our life—like a lot fewer new clothes and a lot less eating out—we have maintained a life not too far off from what it was when I worked full-time at a regular job. We didn't even give up a car or cable TV, but we still really count on my income. And I am definitely happier. Sure, sometimes I get a little lonely for coworkers, but rolling out of bed and doing work (or not, if Clyde and I make plans to go have fun instead) in my PJs a few days a week has been worth it. I can take Clyde to a matinee or to play with his cousin at the park during the week. I don't have to have stress attacks brought on by a fire-breathing boss. I don't have to attend nonsensical one-hour meetings. It's also nice to be able to dump the clients who are ridiculous. Plus, Ed has not befallen me to housewife status, as I know can happen once one person works at home, with free time to do it all at home. I still work full time, after all, just flexibly. We still share preschool drop offs, pick ups, dinner making, and housework. And if Clyde's sick, we still have to weigh out each other's job responsibilities, but it just seems to work out easier these days.

I had a conversation with a stay-at-home mama friend of mine a while ago. She was telling me how having children and being home with them full time fills her completely. I shared with her, "It doesn't do that for me. I need something else." We both sat with that and tried to make it fit, to let it make sense in our own minds. Of course, I envied her, mostly cause I felt like feeling the way she felt would be easier. But at the same time, I loved the mother I am because it made the most sense inside of me. And it also started to make sense to me that someone else could love her child just as much as I love mine but could feel completely differently about work. And I loved her for it. For a minute, I sort of wanted to damn myself for having workish ambition, drive, and desire, but then I decided to just love it too. For this matter, I know I will never give up work altogether. I know I will never let it get away. I've made big adjustments, given up bigger salaries, and I'm still not where I want to be, but I think that chronic dissatisfaction might just be who I am. Always a little off balance. Always working on the next thing. Always a hundred creative balls in the air (hey, some have landed: a growing list of freelance clients, Clyde, mamazine.com). Always lonely for the creative thing I haven't mastered yet. Sure, I made more time by quitting work, but now I've just filled it up with more work. On the other hand, the work is getting more and more to my liking, and so is the off-kilter balance that I live in.