I'm what I call a "Type-B workaholic." Not a Type-A personality, as anyone who knows me would tell you, but I definitely put in the time at the keyboard. I've worked on embedded software for the International Space Station, and launch control software for missile interceptors.
For the last 11 years, I've worked in the in the PHP web development space. I'm currently a Professional Services consultant working with customers from Iowa to India, from Jackson Mississippi to Jakarta Indonesia. I spent much of last year onsite with those customers 2-3 weeks every month. I've defined myself, and my value, in terms of my contributions to my work and customers.
And I've neglected the relationships with my family members.
I've grown in so many ways - my wife says so, it must be true :-) - but she's the only one who has seen it. The people I spent my formative years with hardly know who I am.
They know who I used to be, and that colors the few (very few, like two or three) interactions we have in a given year. And they have changed, as well, but I'm stuck viewing them with a perspective formed from infrequent snapshots of their lives.
A cousin's husband passed away suddenly a few short weeks ago. Today my wife's 95 (96?!) year-old mother fell, broke her leg, and is in the hospital awaiting surgery first thing tomorrow morning. Prods one to action.
I need to stop thinking about what I should do, writing this post about what I should do, and simply DO what I should do. I'm taking the time to write this post in case you're in a similar position, and encouraging you to do what YOU should do.
And now to do it: I'm signing off, picking up the phone, and I'm going to have a CONVERSATION with my mom, whom I've not physically seen in over a year, in spite of the fact that I drive past the city in which she lives on my way to the airport.