If you asked me last year what, career-wise, I might want to change, my answer likely would have been that I wanted to work from home more often, or to be more specific, more regularly.

I would have told you that the goal, if we had continued to talk about it, wasn’t so much about balance, or laundry, or getting dinner on the table. Instead, I would tell you it was about being around if our teenagers needed me – even if they didn’t know they needed me.

I would also confess how, even being the boss, how incapable I was about working remotely regularly, because of the self-imposed guilt I felt when leaving the office. How,  even when our daughter asked if someone could be home after school to help her stay on track, and not get sucked into another Bob’s Burgers marathon, I could not get out of my own way to get home regularly on my assigned day and time.

Two weeks later, as I sat outside eating lunch with our daughter, I couldn’t help but thinking… “Be careful what you wish for, lest it come true.”

I wanted to work from home regularly. I wanted to spend more time with our children.

But certainly not like this.

I didn’t want to be able to work from home because we couldn’t leave our home due to a worldwide pandemic. I didn’t want to be able to spend time with the kids because everything was cancelled. I didn’t want them to need me because they are feeling anxious, isolated and out of sorts.

Now? I’d really like to go back to the office.