Power Lunch: (L-R) Ashley, Eloise, Jennifer and Shannon
"Tumble outta bed and I stumble to the kitchen, pour myself a cup of ambition." -- Dolly Parton, "9 to 5"
When I married Harlan Seymour last year I didn't change my name. I'd spent too many years building a career as Jennifer Glass. Informally, though, we call ourselves the Glamour family. Take the GLA out of Jennifer GLAss and the MOUR out of Harlan SeyMOUR, and you get GLAMOUR.
We all agree this is better than SEY-ASS.
Most of my adult life I've been a hard-charging, professional single gal in the city. I've had demanding and rewarding jobs in Boston, Hong Kong, New York and San Francisco, some of the world's great cities. Now I live in DomestiCity.
Because of my cancer, a few months ago I stepped out of the workforce. I thought a lot about what this would mean. Over the years my career has not only allowed me to make a comfortable living, it has provided intellectual stimulation, kept me feeling engaged and relevant, and afforded me tremendous opportunity to see the world. My employment has been the primary source of my social interactions and one of the main ways by which I identify myself. But when it became clear that I might only feel well a few hours a day, it was an easy decision to choose to spend those hours with my family, and not in meetings or traffic.
I worked hard for a lot of years and genuinely enjoyed working. But I have to say that I enjoy not working even more. I see friends, exercise every day, read whole books, and when I feel tired I take a nap. All in all it's a pretty nice life, except for the part where I have lung cancer.
With my 5-year-old stepdaughter Eloise, I recently had my first ever "mommy" play date with my neighbor Shannon and her daughter Ashley. Shannon is a long-time friend and former colleague who knows as well as anyone that I've always been better at cleaning up information leaks than sippy cup leaks, and more comfortable navigating the corporate ladder than the monkey bars. Thank you Shannon for helping me understand the etiquette around taking someone else's child to the bathroom, and patiently explaining to me that at the playground you're supposed to keep an eye on the child assigned to you.
My days now are more about board games than board rooms, and I negotiate bedtimes not deadlines. It may not be life in the fast lane, but with a kid in the back seat I can always use the carpool lane. Sometimes I catch myself getting irate when there's a lot of noise and chaos in the house, but then I think how much better that is than loneliness and too much quiet. GLAMOUR-Us is plenty glamorous for me.
This column originally appeared on parade.com. For more by Jennifer Glass, click here. "Like" Jennifer's Facebook page here. See her Fear.Less. video here.