A grand experiment.

Tomorrow I leave my current job, the one I've held for more than five years now, for a brand new job. Changing jobs is always a big deal, I get that, but this is even a bit bigger in scale because my current job affords me plenty of schedule flexibility (I work part-time in the office, part-time at home), whereas the new job doesn't really offer flextime at all.

Being home with the girls during the day has always been a huge priority for me, and I am endlessly grateful for all the time I've been able to spend with them. At the same time, work seeped into every aspect of my home life, and even the time I was home with them during the day has been colored with work: deadlines and office drama and all the other stressors that come when the line between home and work blurs to where there really isn't a line anymore.

At the same time, my general job satisfaction has greatly decreased in recent past, due to a great number of factors, to the point where it was just plain ol' time for me to go.

The new job is a great opportunity -- better title, a very well-known organization, more money, and what seems to be a good team to work with.

But less face time with my girls.

Here is what I struggle with: If you wrote down the facts, I think the facts would tell you that I chose my job over my family.

And here is what I am hoping is true: That my decision to change jobs was a decision for my own happiness, and that making a decision to find happiness is actually the best decision I could make for my family.

Basically, on Monday, I feel like I'm stepping into this grand experiment. I could fail. I could be miserable working the 8 to 5 grind and not seeing my girls as much as I would like.

Or it could work out exactly as I hope it will -- that it will be tough but rewarding, that life will be better when I'm not miserable in my work, the area of my life that zaps so much of time in the first place.

This was a tough decision, and it might not work out, or it might -- but either way, I know I will learn something invaluable, something I'm not yet able to put into words -- about myself, about what's important in life, about where I ultimately want to be.

And here is the lovely in all of this: The beauty of choice, of options and opportunity, of taking big steps in your life just for the sake of seeing how it will work out. And wherever this choice leads me, I am so excited to watch it, to see how my own life will unfold.