It's the bane of motherhood, the "balance" of working and home life. It's never in balance, it's never equal, and it never will be. It's been a tough realization, but one that I'm comfortable with. I'm very happy working and feeling productive, but my son is my priority. I can do the occasional late night, but I won't be working full time again for a few years. Unfortunately, that dynamic is a particularly difficult one with a husband/wife owned company. This means that Mr. Cobra is the one who takes on more of the stress and responsibility for the company we equally started. He misses out on various nibbles of Dexter's childhood. He is around most of the time, but when things get difficult, he's the one to pick up the slack. It's a tough situation for us to be in a constant struggle to balance between us the duties of home and work. There's guilt on my end because I can't devote the same amount of time to the company and an unbelievable amount of pressure on his end to be accountable for both of ours' and our employees' livelihoods at the cost of having time at home. I find the balance of our relationship much harder than balancing work and motherhood. Mr. Cobra has let me be in a comfortable place at the cost of his own stress level. With his recent health problems, it has become a boiling pot of emotion. We will work through it, but it's a test of our entrepreneurial spirit and our personal perseverance.
Owning a business isn't easy; mix in health and family issues, and it is so much harder to find a happy balance of all of them without one of them suffering in some way. People who own a business that becomes successful, they truly deserve respect, maybe even a medal of some sort. We started our company without any seed money, loans or investors. It continues to this day to run under it's own steam. We are working on some of the most creative and challenging projects to date. We love what we do and it's often hard to get our heads above water enough to realize how awesome it is to "get paid to play". We aren't in business to become billionaires. We chose the wrong field for that. We just want to be able to live comfortably in one of the most expensive cities to live in. If we can do that, do great work, and employ some sick talent, and raise a happy/healthy family then we've been successful. I think we are almost there.
