A 'Sandwich Generation' Caregiver Heads Back to Work This is one of three essays contributed to the Motherlode blog by performers in the first New York City production of "Listen to Your Mother," a national series of live readings by local writers in celebration of Mother's Day. I am writing this at 3 a.m., the night before the final rehearsal of "Listen to Your Mother." I am producing the show: my first professional undertaking since my twins were born, my first venture into theater in nearly 20 years. It has turned me into a full-time working mother for the first time in a decade. It has been exhilarating, exhausting and deeply satisfying. Also terrifying. The show is this weekend. My anxiety is deep. As a pregnant mother of twins, unfamiliar with the idea of 3 a.m. as my only "me time," I didn't plan to leave my career in media behind for more than a decade. I was just going to hit the snooze button for a short while. But after my sons were born, time and time again, just when I thought I was about to return to work, something would come along to knock me back to the curb of all-care-all-the-time. When they were 2, it became clear that one son's speech delay was not a little blip in development, but rather a door opening into the autism spectrum. I joined the ranks of autism-mom warriors, becoming a de facto researcher into the educational and neurobiological aspects of autism. I was running a special-ed preschool for one inside my home - a full-time "job" if ever there was one. Simultaneously, my elderly parents moved back to New York from Florida. We pretended that it was to spend more time with their adorable twin grandsons. Underneath, I think we all knew they needed help, and soon. Just as the 3 a.m. wakings of babies and toddles had subsided, the 3 a.m. panicked phone calls from my parents and emergency room all-nighters began in earnest. That is why, one bitter night in the winter of 2010, about 3 a.m., I sat down at my computer to write what would become the first post of my blog the Squashed Bologna: A Slice of Life in the Sandwich Generation. My father was then in the middle of dying a long, drawn-out death. My son without autism was having issues of his own. The writing started as catharsis, as something for me to do at 3 a.m., other than worry and watch dreadful television. And then it began to take on a life of its own. People other than family and friends were reading, and liking what they read. And even though I remained squashed by my responsibilities, my identity began a slow, subtle but seismic shift. I stopped thinking of myself as someone who "used to be" more than just a mother and a caregiving daughter. I started thinking of myself as a writer. Then came "Listen to Your Mother." Last spring, I read about fellow bloggers cast in shows in their towns. I wanted in. I wrote to the founder, selling my long-dormant history in the theater and "recent" experience in film and television. I was the perfect person, I told her, to bring the show to New York for Mother's Day 2012. The founder, Ann Imig, listened. We "took a meeting" last summer at a BlogHer conference - the first time I'd been able to use that phrase (and not mean an educational program meeting for my son) in a long time. Ann introduced me to Amy Wilson, an actress/writer/director who had similarly petitioned her to bring the show to New York City. We became partners. Very suddenly, I went from having no job to having a close to full-time one. This is a professional-level production. And I am a professional again, producing something people will pay to see - and stretching those non-mom muscles I have not flexed in 10 long years. It's taken a toll. I have fed my kids way too many organic chicken nugget dinners. I have heard my son wail, "You love your computer more than you love me," as my "just a minute more" stretched into another hour of e-mailing. But I have now planted one foot firmly out of the mom zone, and my family has survived. And I have remembered how good work feels, with colleagues and quantifiable accomplishments. So if you know of anyone seeking to hire a social media-savvy writer and editor with experience in film, TV, theater and event producing, send them my way. I'm back, and I'm staying.