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I am the proud owner of a new dog named Rudy.  I didn’t need Rudy.  Nor did I really want him.    

But at the time, I was moving my oldest son out of our home and into his own apartment in New York City, helping my second son pack for a semester in Italy, congratulating my third son on passing his driver’s test and realizing that I suddenly had to look up to my fourth son, who was too tall (not to mention, way too cool) to snuggle with anymore.  

It was either get a puppy or throw myself at my children’s feet, begging them not to grow up and leave me.  And since I am too old to throw myself at anything (or anyone) without hurting myself, I went the puppy route. 

I can’t say I wasn’t warned.  One of my sisters, who is eight years older than I, always says perimenopausal women past childbearing age need to stay away from puppies and kittens. Of course, since she is my older sister, I ignored her.  I thought I could handle my drying uterus and my kids leaving.  But as Rudy is my witness, I was wrong.  Obviously.  

And now, as he devotedly follows me from room to room wagging his tail and looking up at me like I am the best thing that ever happened to him, my fluctuating hormones and I are left to wonder, “What-now?”    

Recently, I was asked to put together a resume—an exercise I haven’t done in at least 10 years.

Since I was eight, I wanted to grow up and be a journalist.  I studied journalism in school and did all the appropriate internships. My goal was to work for a major newspaper and I told everyone who would listen I didn’t want to marry until I was 30; didn't want to have kids until I was at least 35.  I wanted to work.

But love—and then life—derailed those dreams as I walked down the aisle at 22, followed closely by one baby after another.   

On paper, my work life skips around as my husband and I moved from Honolulu to San Francisco to Cleveland to Australia and back to Cleveland again.  Oh, I was able to carve out a fairly impressive variety of writing and editing gigs between moving boxes, bad nannies, diaper changes, day care situations that didn’t work out, naps and carpools.  I was able to freelance for major newspapers, national magazines, National Public Radio (NPR), online news organizations and even dabbled in TV.  I can proudly look back and say I was a working journalist, winning major national awards and racking up skill sets I wouldn’t have been able to achieve if I had worked for just one news organization.  And though all of this is accurate, it isn’t the entire story of the uphill battle I waged almost daily to pursue it. 

For most of my boys’ lives, I have routinely gotten up at 3:30 am to get a couple hours of work in before getting them up and off to school.  I’d pack in a full days work while they were at school and then work some more after I tucked them in at night.

When they were all in school full-time, I jumped at the opportunity to parlay years of freelance experience into a fulltime job.  (On my second day of work, my youngest, home from sick from school, slept under my desk in the newsroom all day.)     

A couple of years later, we moved yet again.  I cobbled together all of my freelance experience and my full-time work to create the media company I currently run, and that is (finally) taking off.  Once again, I am up at 3:30 am, mindful not to schedule travel when my sons have a cross-country meet or tennis match.  

Having been married 27 years and spending the last 24 years raising children, I'm well aware that being a wife and mother require one compromise after another.  I have spent decades eating all-cheese pizza instead of what I really wanted: mushrooms and black olives. 

Now, I really want to have my pizza with mushrooms and black olives.    

My friend, Ronnie, recently wrote a blog about her lack of dreams—or more accurately, the fact that her life as a mother and wife revolves around making others’ dreams a reality.  Her daughter’s dream to go to law school, her husband’s dream of a mountain house, her other daughter’s dream of becoming a doctor.

When I told her I was going to use her blog as a launching pad for my next column, she told me she thinks people believe most women have created their own path; that they are who they have made themselves to be.  But she says her life was never that way; that she has rarely had the opportunity to express herself or fulfill her dreams; instead, she has put her life and her desires on the backburner. 

Like Ronnie, I have often been my husband’s and my sons’ dream maker.  But I hope my best is still to come.  Why?  Because I am still that little girl staying up way past my bedtime, huddled with a flashlight filling reams of paper with words because if I didn’t get them out, I was sure I would explode.    

I know I am luckier than many working moms.  I have been able to both work and witness nearly all the moments of my kids’ wonder.  I also know my turn is coming--still a few years out until my youngest heads to college, but I must confess envisioning the day when I am able to work without worrying about what to make for dinner keeps me folding their laundry and picking up dirty socks with a smile on my face.    

In the meantime, I will continue to do what I need to do--what I love to do--as a working mom: rescheduling meetings because of sick kids, juggling my work day so I am available to bring enchiladas to Spanish class; finding a way to be at every single swim meet.   

My boys just walked in from school and called to Rudy, who was sound asleep under my desk, his head on my feet.  Rudy looked up at me, as though asking permission to greet them.

“Go on, boy!” I say, and like a shot, he’s out the door of my office. 

And I am alone.   

And I am okay with that.

At least until dinner time.  

Diana Keough is the mother of four sons and the co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of ShareWIK.com.

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