Looming Large

In three short weeks, I will be going back to work.  For a while now I have been living on what felt like borrowed time, as I was supposed to return to work two months ago.  I wasn’t sure exactly what my return date was going to be for a while, but now I know for sure.  It is December 17.  December 17 seemed like a long way away for a while there.  Now?  Not so much.

I’m excited for the holidays, particularly my son’s first Christmas.  But it all has a haze in front of it at the moment as I am blinded to the impending joy by the looming specter that is my return to work.  Ugh.

At Thanksgiving, every. single. person. asked me repeatedly whether I was looking forward to going back to work.  I got tired of repeating the old “In some ways, yes, but in other ways, not so much” and ended up answering “No, not really.”  After all, it’s the truth.  Yes, I am looking forward to seeing my co-workers again.  But you know what? I’m okay with keeping up with them via e-mail and facebook.  I can handle that.  Sure, I’d like to interact with grown-ups on a regular basis, and part of me is looking forward to having someone else find ways to entertain my son all day so I can swoop in at the end of the day and feed, snuggle, and bathe him.  That doesn’t sound so bad.

But I am going to miss him sooooooooooo much.  My heart hurts just thinking about it.  The fact that we still haven’t gotten into a day care, and therefore he is going to be at home with his dad for the first few weeks (at least) should make it easier, but it kind of doesn’t.  It just makes me think, if we are still only going to live off of one income, and one of us is going to stay home, then WHY CAN’T IT BE ME?  It’s not fair.  *Stomps feet*.  Well, it’s the way it has to be.  My job won’t wait for me forever.  And my job is the more stable between the two of us, so I can’t lose it at this point.

Thursday night (Thanksgiving, ironically enough) I had my first ugly cry over this whole thing.  After being asked eighty times about my return to work and our lack of day care I just broke.  The dam burst.  I cried.  Hard.  And of course my husband felt terrible that he doesn’t have the type of job that allows me to stay home indefinitely.  But I don’t think I really want to be a stay at home mom forever.  I love it so so much and I wish I could spend so much time with my son that he would get sick of me.  (Well, okay, maybe not that).  But I know that I need to go back to work, too.  There are many reasons.  I also think it will be good for my husband to have some daddy-son time that he so rarely gets when he’s working.

It will work out.  My son will be fine.  My husband will be fine.  I will be fine.  But oh my god is three weeks such a short amount of time.  I hope I can savor every moment and not let it zoom by, but it may be beyond my control.  As are so many things in this life.

Advertisement