So, I quit my job.

That's right, you read correctly. As the country is shaken by mass layoffs, corporate scandals, and the highest unemployment rate in decades, I quit my relatively well-paying, somewhat stable, pretty darn flexible, 4-day-a-week job.

And I feel good about it.

It's funny, I've written this post in my head many, many times over the past week, and, now that I have a little breathing room to actually write it here, I'm no longer sure what I want to say.

The truth is, the past 3 months have probably been the hardest of my life, and while I knew going into them that this would be the case, that knowledge didn't make it any easier. I thought somehow that signing on for hard would somehow diminish the hardness of it; In fact, I have been surprised by how much harder it has been than I even expected. And I have begun to realize that doing it all does not equal having it all. Because the truth is, you can't fit my job into 4 days a week. You can't grade final projects in your "spare" time and still be thoughtful about your daughter's teacher's Christmas gifts. You can't burn the candle at both ends and still expect to have the patience and sweetness that your children deserve. And you can't shoulder this much burden and expect your marriage to be untouched.

On the night of our staff and board Christmas dinner, I was talking to one of our board members about the economic downturn; he said that he felt hopeful, because he believed that in these tough times people would embrace the things that were most important to them.

On the last night of my class, one of my students showed up drunk. I didn't realize this until we were deep into conversation after the other students had gone, and she told me she thought that Deputy Directors had a bad deal and that I should be the Director; I could be Anne Pasternak, she said, I should Anne Pasternak, if only I would embrace my fears.

When I started working with Anne 6 years ago, I was a grad student named Heather Duggan with a brand new boyfriend; Now, I am a married mother of two, and I feel as if my entire adult life has played out on the stage of Creative Time. Despite the fact that we are facing a bad economy with a mortgage, tuition, and child care bills, I understand that I need take a big risk and figure out who I am again; I need to embrace what's most important to me, face my fears, and become Heather Peterson.

It's time.