It’s the final week of my business life with Jennifer, at least for the foreseeable future.  We’ll still get together a few times a week for shipping and packaging and gossip, in the evenings.  But I am fully aware that this is the last Monday we’ll be working full-time together.  It’s weird for both of us - it’s like the end of an era. Wait, it’s not “like” the end of an era.  It IS the end of an era. 

I can remember her first day, and we plotted our takeover of the marketing consulting field in Richmond.  We both networked like fiends and realized we could both sell.  We also had a lot of fun.  Maybe we had too much fun.  Even though there were a few days throughout the years sprinkled with tears of frustration (and occasionally rage) over the ways things could go, mostly we laughed our way through it.  From the attorney who screamed at Jennifer to “cut the crap” (and believe me, he hadn’t even BEGUN to see the kind of crap Jennifer could dish out) to the psycho who heckled me during a new media presentation (she called me an “ageist”), we managed to find the humor in just about anything. 

So we have taken turns being jealous of each other. Listening to her talk about the kick butt shoes at DSW makes me a a little green with envy.  Listening to me talk about play dates does the same for her.  We both want the same thing, however - a little bit of work mixed in with a little bit of family.  Neither of us is getting exactly what we want, but we’re doing what we’ve always done - making the best of it and laughing a lot about it. 

Thursday we will drink adult beverages in the middle of the day and make Sara drive our tipsy butts back to the office to sober up.  It’s our last hurrah - then it gets hard.  We have a schedule of how we will run the online businesses when I’m a full-time mom and she’s a full-time employee.  I’m going to try not to covet the extra money she will earn; I’m sure she’ll try not to covet my mornings at the library. 

For now, though, I have two feet in two places.  The weekend was full of birthday activities for the kids, and whether it is self-imposed or not, I feel out of sorts suddenly with the women I’ve gotten to know over the years.  I feel that “otherness” creeping in, no matter how much I push it back.  I literally feel like I’m having a panic attack when I think about not working.  I say this without meaning that I don’t WANT to stay home. I do. In fact, I’m a little fired up about the challenge of it.  This doesn’t mean that I don’t feel terrified about it.  I am rarely at a loss for words - this is one of those times.  The only analogy I can give is my feelings mirror what I think jumping out of a plane with a parachute feels like.  I’ve never done it, but my heart is in my throat, and although I know I’m going to be fine - full confidence in the chute opening - stepping off the ledge is scaring the crap out of me. 

I promise that eventually I will stop writing obsessively about this at some point in the very near future. For now, though, I need to cope with it by turning it around, back and forth, in my blog, so I can look at it.  When I’m done examining it, I’ll get back to the blogs about my parenting mistakes and my customer service nightmares.  Until then, please standby.