This year has been a very important one for me, and a pretty life changing one. I made a huge decision to leave a successful corporate career, to turn my life as I knew it upside down, and focus on two things that were majorly lacking in my life: 1) real time spent with my two girls, and a career that I was actually passionate about doing, something that had always been a major life goal for me, and which in the last few years had seemed to be slipping further and further out of my reach. I couldn’t believe it, but I was now one of those crazy people that walked away from a comfortable life to the scary unknown of ‘working for yourself’. I was terrified and at the same time the most alive I’ve felt in a very long time. I told myself, “If you don’t do this now, you’ll never do it”. And with the encouragement of my amazing family and close friends I took the leap of faith and followed my dream of working in ‘fashion’. And with that, my third baby, Shop Lombard & Fifth was born. I was now officially a #GirlBoss.
I was now also a full time mom (because leaving your corporate job also means letting go of luxuries like having a full time nanny!) This meant my new life would be a constant juggle of taking care of my girls Grace and Charlie and fitting in work somewhere between school drop off, naps, feedings and melt downs. Needless to say, this GirlBoss mug from Pretty Collected has gone through a whole lot of coffee! My days begin early and end when the clock reads AM again, and I am more tired than I ever remember being, even when the girls were teeny babies. But through it all I have learned one thing. The road to success and personal fulfillment is a long and hard one, but when you finally see that little bit of light peeking through the tunnel, calling you to run toward it even faster, it is the greatest, most rewarding feeling in the world.
The feeling that I get when I am able to take Grace to her swim class and watch her as she screams “look at me mommy! Look what I can do!” while she demonstrates a silly version of a back stroke. It’s unlike any other, and I still think about all the ones before it that I missed, because my previous job of course never allowed time for such excursions. And although I am sitting by that pool with my laptop open, trying at the same time to watch my little fishy do her thing, and uploading ‘new arrivals’ to our online shop, thinking “ok I just need 10 more minutes before it’s shower/change/snack time”, I am at the same time stressed and completely fulfilled. As women, we are expected to wear so many different hats and wear them well, that I think many of us get down on our selves when we don’t feel like we have achieved a level of an impossible perfection every day. Be it, being a mother, or a wife or a Girl Boss.
So, to all of my fellow mamas, working women, wonder-women and girls who will grow up to be amazing and strong: cheers to us! All of us. For saying “we can do it all!” and doing it. For setting out to accomplish what sometimes seems impossible and scary. For inspiring one another and not letting comparison be our dream killer. For recognizing that there is a fellow Girl Boss in each and every one of us, and cheering each other on! Raise your 9pm mug of coffee and keep going! Because there will be a day you will wake up and say “I created a life I dreamed of”.
I’ve teamed up with Pretty Collected (a GirlBoss owned company!) to give away one of these awesome Girl Boss mugs. Head over to my Instagram page to enter and follow Pretty Collected HERE.
Thanks so much for reading and have a fab week!
A huge thanks to the amazing and uber patient Sohail Mamdani of Any Medium for giving my blog website this beautiful make over, and for putting up with my endless emails. You are my tech sensei 🙂
~ Veronica
