Hobby Parenting?

“What is your hobby?” the annoying workshop facilitator asked us. I swear she was looking right at me, a little out of breath from the effort of clicking the remote to advance the slides. I felt a bit of disgust both at the effort this woman needed to make a projector work and the tasteless question.

I was a mid-level executive at Microsoft, the parent of two young children, half-assed wife to a man with his own hectic career to manage and she was asking me about hobbies? Do people even use that word anymore?

“Who’d like to share?” I suddenly became very interested in the contents of my new bag. It was bright green leather and cow hide, and huge departure from my standard black bag. I wanted a statement piece. As I leaned over to lift it slowly from the floor I am sure the bright green caught her eye causing me to second guess the statement.

Her head swiveled around eyes locking onto mine like a hungry owl hunting its prey.

I felt my mouth making its telltale smirk, my husband calls turtle face, a straight line. “You there?…Melissa?” she was looking at the name tag I had created less than an hour earlier on a folded piece of paper with a purple sharpie. “what is one of your hobbies?”

Oh sh*t…somehow my stream of consciousness had nothing that would be an appropriate answer…PowerPoint, Commuting, Kegels, Drinking, The Bachelor. “Ahhh…parenting?” I said with the hesitancy of a vegan trying to order at McDonald's, somehow knowing that the fries were not really organic or vegan.

The group laughed, and with deep sadness I joined them, chuckling and quickly covering up my slip, “ha ha” yes that was a joke. “yoga” I said sucking in my stomach with just the hit of a curve of my turtle face.

I was definitely in too deep at work. Too focused on just this one dimension of my life. In hindsight this was just one of many messages the Universe was sending my way.

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