Entrepreneurship Gives You Days Like Today
Inspiration and Advice for Women and Women Entrepreneurs Who Are Mothers
I stood in the same spot, near the same bush, at the end of our stone driveway waving goodbye. This time he wouldn’t come home at the noon from Kindergarten or 3 p.m. from Junior High School or 5:30 p.m. from High School basketball practice or on Columbus Day after a partial semester at Boston College or after a Physician Assistant medical rotation through Le Moyne College. This time he sailed up the road in his own car on a new day to a new horizon of professional life in New York City. It was the same type of morning with the grass wet with dew and the end of summer coolness in the air, but today I won’t greet him at the end of his day. Today, he is on his own and so am I.
You might be wondering why I am writing about such a personal story on a Tuesday business morning but you see I became a woman entrepreneur on August 8, 1995 when my oldest son was three years old and my youngest 3 months old in order to balance my love for having a career with my desire to be as much of a full time mother as I could. I thought I would climb the corporate ladder in a financial firm when I left one morning for the bright lights of Philadelphia most likely on this day back in 1986. But my love for my boyfriend who is now my husband of 27 years, my duties as a much older sibling to 2 young brothers and 1 sister, and the realization that big city life wasn’t for me drew me back to Central New York 9 months after I left that one sunny August morning.
Serendipity has a way of staring you in the eyes sometimes. I remember how excited I was to leave and to start my life anew in 1986 in a new city with a new career with my best friend. I was exactly where my son is this sunny August morning thirty years ago. In life you can’t hold others back and you mostly certainly shouldn’t hold yourself back either. This morning I take the lid off the career ladder I wanted to climb when I was 27 years old but just couldn’t do with my two sons glistening eyes and happy giggles. I wanted to be with them as much as I could until they didn’t need me anymore. This morning is the morning they don’t. It is time for them to soar and time for me to do the same and change the world with my personal passion.
If I know one thing for sure, you must live your life exactly how you want to live it every day without regrets. On mornings like this when I could be crying, I have a smile on my face, a full heart with high hopes for my son’s professional future in the Big Apple and an awakening of some of those dreams pushed down to live her life side-by-side with her sons. My life has been blessed because entrepreneurship gave me a way to be ready for this exact moment when the house is still, the morning sun shining, the world awaiting for that woman who is still waiting to change it with her own indelible mark. Today is the day. It has arrived. I hope you live it too.
Women TIES 
Wonderful! And I can share the sentiment. Both my children are on their own, have their own homes, and their own careers. I started my own business for much the same reasons you did, along with the fact that my husband’s career entailed long hours and travel. Being able to be there for them through all the summers, school activities, and sports events is something I will never regret. Congratulations to you and your son!
LikeLike