Eve Rodsky - Fair Play: A Game-Changing Solution for When You Have Too Much to Do (and More Life to Live)

> Im surprised you didnt get blueberries.

I stared at my husbands text and imagined him speaking these words in what I call his porn voicebreathless, like he gets when hes frustrated or overwhelmed.

Instantly defensive, I thought: Um, why cant you get the blueberries?

Id taken the afternoon off in order to spend time with my oldest, who was sorely in need of some mommy reconnection time in the wake of the recent arrival of his new baby brother. After going over my long list of instructions for the sitter (twice), I hustled out the front door to pick Zach up from schoolall while balancing the snacks Id just packed, a bag forgotten by the prior days playmate, a FedEx package to be dropped off, a brand-new already-too-small pair of childrens shoes to be returned, and a client contract that needed a markup before tomorrow morning. I was just barely holding it together when my husbands blueberry text arrived, and the tears came so fast and furious I had to pull over to the side of the road.

How had it happened that Id gone from successfully managing an entire department at work to failing to manage a grocery list for my family? And what self-respecting woman cries over an item forgotten at the market? And, just as alarming: Would a container of off-season blueberries serve as the harbinger to the end of my marriage?

I wiped away the mascara streaks beneath my eyes and thought: This is not how I envisioned my lifethe fulfiller of my familys smoothie needs.

Hold up. Rewind.

My mom and dad divorced when I was three and she was pregnant with my brother. Mom opted to forgo alimony to avoid acrimony and raised my brother and me in a one-parent home while working full-time as a professor of social work in New York City. Not a high-paying job, but she made it work for our family. Or so I thought until the first eviction notice was slipped under our apartment door. Mom had taught classes all day, picked my brother and me up from school, took us to the dentist uptown, dropped us back at home with a sitter downtown, and then... went back to work. When I saw the envelope on the floor, I opened it, read the letter inside, and then waited up late for Mom to come home. When she finally walked through the door, I broke the news to her that we no longer would have a place to live. I was eight years old. Mom assured me that shed simply forgotten to pay our rent, and she would mail a check first thing in the morning.

She followed through on her promise and we didnt have to move, but from that moment on I understood how hard life was for my mom because she carried 100 percent of the burden at home. Throughout my formative years and on too many occasions to count, I remember looking at her at the end of another long, exhausting daymy overworked supermom who tried to do it alland thinking: That will never be me. When I grow up, I will have a true partner in life. Though it wasnt modeled for me, I became determined to build and sustain a 50/50 partnership one day.

I worked hard and got myself through college and then law school, when I met the man who would become my partner. My best friend had set us up. Zoe said about Seth: Hes Jewish and obsessed with hip hop. I instantly flashed back to when Id surprised guests with a choreographed dance to Slick Ricks Childrens Story at my bat mitzvah. I had to meet this guy.

I was a first-year associate at a law firm in New York City, which meant logging long hours, so for our first date Seth and I agreed to meet at a late-night bar in Union Square. But at 9:30 p.m., I received a client call that kept me on the line for nearly two hours. By the time I arrived at the bar, it was almost midnight and Seth was... still there. One of Seths friends had waited with him until I showed up. Seth told me later what his friend had said when I walked through the door: She was worth the wait. And so was Seth. I liked him right away.

There was just one snag to our budding romance: Seth lived in Los Angeles, and I had just taken the New York Bar Exam. We did a cross-country courtship for a year, and on our anniversary, I presented him with The Best of 2003, every single email wed written to each other since the night wed met. There were more than 600 pages of email exchanges that Id printed out in the basement of my law firm and bound into a deep red four-volume book set. Seth was touched by my sentimentality (and equally impressed by my meticulous organizational skills). I think we both knew then that this was the real thing.

Within the year, I took on the arduous endeavor of studying for and passing the California Bar and uprooted to Los Angeles. And then, when Seths growing business required an East Coast office, we packed up and moved back to New York as a newly engaged couple. (Getting him back home was my secret plan.)