Flying Lessons

On the coldest mornings, I got dressed for school in the bathroom while my mother took her shower. My insistence on chatting with her while steam filled up the room likely stole her only daily chance at a precious moment alone, but she never chased me out or told me to be quiet. She let me sit, curled up on the toilet seat, knees drawn up to my chin as she dried her hair, brushed her teeth, and massaged a litany of creams into her cheeks.

From there, she'd kiss the top of my head and slip off to get dressed: nylons, skirt, blouse, a blazer, the early-90s pads firing off her shoulders like armor. I'd wait until she came back, door open to clear the mirror of its steam, to do her makeup - eyeshadow, brows, mascara, lipstick. A woman in a man's world, she walked the tightrope of perception - I mean business, but I'm not a threat; I'm a wife and mother, but committed to my career; I take care of myself, but I'm not frivolous or fussy.

My mother worked as an actuary - a job so nerdy, so full of calculations and devoid of human interaction that the joke, "You can tell an aggressive actuary because he looks at YOUR shoes in conversation," got reliable laughs at the holiday staff party. Long the arena of men and calculators, my mother rose through the ranks at her company to become one of the first women to reach the senior level. She never talks about harassment or judgment, but I know it was inevitable - especially in the proto-#girlboss days of the mid-1990s.

I got to visit my mother's office on occasion, a tall, impressive building with a fountain at the entrance and a glass-fronted elevator that looked into a central courtyard. Even more than the surroundings though, I remember the way people talked to my mother - cordial, respectful, with even a little deference. I sat at the four-chair conference table in her private office and doodled with a rainbow of highlighters on dot-matrix printer paper while she took worked on reports and shared information with the seemingly-endless parade of men who passed by her open door.

I was so proud of her: an "office lady" who had time to organize our small town's local telephone directory, come teach my second grade class about Chanukah, remember and plan all the family birthdays and anniversaries, and, most importantly, listen to my stories, thoughts, and feelings every single morning in the cozy steam of the bathroom.

When the demands of actuarial and corporate life began to build into unmanageable stress, I didn't notice at first. I knew my mother's temper was a little short, dinner a little more haphazard sometimes. I could hear the clatter of her home computer keyboard long after I was in bed. But it wasn't until she sat me down one day and explained that it was time to leave her office that I realized the toll that "having it all" was taking on her.

No more power suits and pumps. No more lipstick. No more rides in the great glass elevator. I saw clearly the stress of the decision, leaving the ladder she'd been climbing longer than I'd been alive. When I asked what she was going to do once she left, I remember how much the answer surprised me.

She was going to school.

My mother had once dreamed of being a doctor, but had been turned off by the cutthroat competition of the premed students at her university. Nevertheless, the idea of working in the health and healing world had always tugged at her, the promise of the road not taken. She planned to train as a massage therapist, starting with lengthy and intense courses in anatomy and physiology.

Watching my mother return to school offered me a whole new layer of pride. My mom wasn't just a powerful "office lady" - as it turned out, she was a dedicated, motivated student. Our house was soon littered with index cards, carefully inscribed with the names of muscles and joints. She practiced her technique on all of us (and taught me, in the process, to give a superlative neck rub, a skill for which my partner is still grateful.) She worked hard - as hard as she did in the corporate world, minus the shoulder pads - but this time, I could see the twin engines of purpose and joy driving her forward.

As a young adult, I appreciated even more what it meant for her to leave the corporate track for life as a massage therapist. It meant that my father became the primary breadwinner, shifting the financial structure of our family as he supported her dream. It meant starting her own business, in addition to learning her new massage skills, an endeavor that sometimes left her busier than corporate life. It meant taking a chance on an entirely new career based on a gut feeling, but not a promise, of personal and professional satisfaction.

I had always admired my mother's power. Watching her dramatically shift the course of her life gave me a new appreciation: her courage. The courage to admit she wasn't happy. The courage to leave the stability and familiarity. The courage to try something new. The courage to leap, not knowing where she might land, but trusting her ability to fly.