I knew I should leave it alone, but I couldn’t help it.  I  also knew that if could somehow stop scratching, it might scab over before my important meeting the following morning. If it did scab over, then I could put some makeup on it and cover up the redness.  That would help my face look relatively normal.  I put my hands in my lap and visualized a successful meeting.  I pictured myself shaking hands, smiling, receiving a tour of the office, and making an overall good first impression.  But while I was visualizing, my hand had quietly crept up the side of my face and I was scratching again.  Damn.

 The previous Sunday, my family and I had hiked through our friends’ farm, looking for a Christmas tree that we could cut down.  We found one that we all liked in record time.  Then we checked it for both bird’s nests and praying mantis egg pouches (you don’t want those hatching in your house on Christmas Eve!) both of which automatically disqualify a tree from being brought home with us.  We did NOT check it for poison ivy vines. Therefore, we could not have noticed the delicate one wrapping up its trunk.  My husband cut the tree down while I held it up by its infected trunk, and then we took turns dragging it back to our minivan.  We lifted it up onto the roof rack, tied it down, and drove off without realizing that my gloves were covered with crud.  And at some point during that ride home, I must have brushed my hair off the side of my face with my poison ivy-covered glove.   

As I sat on the carpet in one of the Sky Harbor Airport gate areas scratching, I realized how much my appearance had affected my self-confidence.  Normally I travel in my business attire and I feel pretty good about myself.  But on this day my hair was pulled back because it made my face itch when I wore it down.  It had seemed ridiculous to bother with makeup when the side of my face looked like I’d been kissed by a hot iron, so I had left it off.  And since it was a travel day and not a day of meetings, I had on jeans instead of a suit.  This combination of crud and casual look made me slink though the airport avoiding eye contact with everyone, and I sat on the floor rather than have a fellow traveler next to my oozing, throbbing face. 

Of course, I know that my attitude is completely in my own hands.  I may not be able to cure the poison ivy before my meeting, but I certainly have the power to control how I react to it.  I can sit on the floor and mope, or I can take my rightful place in one of the gate area chairs and start preparing for my meeting.  I stand up, brush off my bad attitude, and sit in the closest open chair.  There is a person seated next to the cruddy side of my face, so I make a bet with myself.  If he moves, next year the family buys an artificial Christmas tree from Wal-Mart.  If he stays, then we go back to the tree farm and add poison ivy to the list of things we check for before cutting a tree down. 

He stayed.

I turned to the experts.  I started reading Women at the Topby Diane F. Halpern and Fanny M. Cheung.  They interviewed 62 women in top leadership positions in the US, China, and Hong Kong, that either had children or took care of adult members of their families.   These women DO seem to have it all.  Not only are they successful both at home and at work, but they manage both roles calmly.  Most of them also had rich, rewarding relationships with their husbands.   Here are some of the things I learned:

• Prioritize the important.  Make a list.  Decide what comes first, second, and so on.  This is the first step to fitting everything together.
• Budget your time carefully around your priorities.  If you want to spend quality time with the kids on the weekend, put it on your calendar.  Do your best to keep to that schedule.  Make sure unimportant things don’t eat into time you set aside for the important.
• If it isn’t important, find somebody else to do it.  Outsource!  Enlist other family members to help with things that don’t add value to your day.  This may mean asking them to handle errands, cook, or clean.  If there is nobody to help at home with these things, then pay somebody to do it.  Not only does this allow you to focus on thekey tasks, but it reduces your stress level. 
• Be prepared to let go of your personal time.  The high-achieving women in this particular book set aside hobbies and other enjoyable things.  They had their priorities and understood that to reach the top, they couldn’t have a lot of activities that delayed their progress.
•  Focus on one thing at a time.  Although these women were incredible multi-taskers, when it came to the most important things, they would focus on them 100%.  When they had family time scheduled, they were intensely focused on their children.  When they were working, that was it- they were working. 
• If you need more time, sleep less.  This is not healthy long-term, as we all need a good night’s sleep in order to maintain our health and our performance both at work and at home.  Just the same, many of these women claimed that they stayed up late at night to fit in a few more hours of work.
• Choose a supportive husband.  Most of the women the authors quoted were more successful than their husbands.  In most cases, they women had found husbands who were not threatened by their success.  These men were proud of their wives and were willing to take on more activities at home to help out.  In the cases where the husbands were not supportive, the marriages usually ended in divorce.  When they re-married, they seemed to find the right type of partner the second time around.

Although my specific reason for reading this book was to find out how to balance work and family, it also showed me how much effort it takes to be a working mother at the top of her field.  It put my own life into perspective.  The next time I become tense because there is too much “To Do” list for the time available, I will remember this book and relax.  I’ll make sure I’m working on the things that matter most, and try not to worry about the rest.  And speaking of “rest”, I’ll probably set the alarm clock an hour earlier the next day, too.