Wow. My baby is 3.5 months and I haven’t done any design work in ages!

The idea of me creating 5 design concepts in 3 hours seems soooo far away. Screen layouts and final concepts. Feels like an eternity ago! Deadlines, invoices, timesheets. In a previous life!

I’m almost scared to try, in case I discover that I’ve lost the ability to use that part of my brain. Or I’ve forgotten how to design, run a relatively savvy business AND be a hard-nosed career professional. It’s a scary thought.

Right now, my life is warm and fuzzy, in a world of Mr Spider, clapping songs and cloth nappies.

I guess it’s suddenly beginning to bug me. Having a kid at age 25, there are a few things I’ve had to come to terms with.

I’m having a hard time getting used to the fact that I’m not earning any money.

Each month passes and I wish that I could put a dollar value to the things I’ve done.

Not that it’s about the money. Rather, the worth of the work I’m doing. Because sometimes, when I’m in my trackies leaning over the laundry basin stirring a bucket of smelly nappies, I pause and think…

I find it hard to comprehend that I someone would pay me $50/hour for making silly graphical web banners, and NOTHING for this. I go back to stirring, slowly puzzling over which of the two is worse.

It also bugs me to watch the industry happily going about it’s business. Watching things change, trends move, technologies emerge. I feel like I’ve missed the bus or something.

I watch my colleagues and contemporaries develop and evolve. Their folios getting bigger. Experience ticking longer. I’m moving out of the loop so quickly. It scares me to think that I might be left on the corporate shelf.

On the other hand, I think I want a career change. I’d like to do something with a lot more soul. Something worthwhile, with purpose and value. I’d like to make a whole lot of good things happen.

I guess in the meantime I’ll be quite happy being a mum.

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