This is my last post for the Full Time, All the Time blog. It’s hard to believe that it has been more than two years since I started writing here, but it’s even harder to believe why I’m leaving.

Over two years ago, I took on the role of blogger here when my predecessor Karen Waldron of Chookooloonks stopped working full time in a corporate office and started building her own business from her home. My very first post here was about how I felt guilty watching Karen leave the workforce, but how certain I was that working out of the home was the best choice for me and my family. Two years later, I’m writing my last blog because I, too, have left the traditional workforce behind in exchange for self-employment.

I have this strange sense of being on some conveyor belt of maternal evolution, as if every mother reaches a point where she re-evaluates her values and goals again and decides to make a major career change, one that brings her back into the home even after her kids have gone off to school. First Karen, and now me. Is this where we all end up?

Of course, we all know that evolutionary path is not inevitable. Some women  never work, some work their entire lives outside of the home, and some (like me, I suspect) spend their lives dancing in and out of various working arrangements. Each situation can be analyzed and written about in detail, but what I’ve been thinking about most recently is the process of change itself. A constant state of metamorphosis, it seems, is the only truly universal thing we all share as mothers.

I’ve been trying to guess what you might be thinking, what you might be hoping for your own life. Do you dream of becoming self-employed? Do you wish you could spend more time at home or with your family? What changes have occurred in the last two years of your own life, and are you surprised by them? Are you anticipating the next change with hope or anxiousness?

In October of 2008, I used my first post to detail exactly why I chose to work outside the home.

“I love to travel. I crave a challenge.  And I thrive on new experiences whether I’m alone or with my kids.  I continue to work full time in order to hang on to those personal priorities.”

Ironically, those are the very same reasons that I now live and work nomadically.

In spite of all that has changed, so much at the core stays the same.

And so it will be with this blog, I imagine. The name, the job, the details will change. The writing style and topics will be new. But the core, the desire to connect with other parents, many of whom are working to balance full time motherhood with a full time job, remains.

Next week you’ll be reading the brilliant and hilarious Metalia, who I personally adore and aspire to be more like in every way. I’m certain you’ll find her as charming and entertaining as I do.

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