Stay at Home or Go to Work

I've been very lucky, being able to take maternity leave for the past 12 weeks. Alas, those halcyon days are over. I go back to work on Monday.

Some of it was unpaid, which is fine for the short-term but not something Mike and I could sustain for the long-term. At least, not in our current lifestyle, in which we both pay for convenience more often than not. We're both pretty lazy about a lot of things, and we're comfortable enough to indulge that sloth fairly frequently.

In theory, if one of us stayed home, we could float it, but not without some painful decisions (no gardener, no dog walker, and no house cleaners....of those three things, the last one REALLY hurts) first. Mike thinks we'd we'd be fine, but I grew up poor, and I do NOT want to have to penny pinch. So, when he brings up him staying home, I'm pretty strongly against it.

Despite that view on the both of us working, I definitely have mixed feelings about returning to work.

On the one hand, most of my days at home are really monotonous. I've watched more HGTV and Food Network than is probably safe for human consumption. On the other hand, I've been present for Logan's first smile. I have observed him, on a daily basis, gain more head control and more awareness of his surroundings. I live for those smiles, and the moments when I wake up up before he does. I have the luxury of just watching him sleep when I don't have to rush out the door.

Knowing that he'll be out of my sight for nearly 10 hours each day, growing and changing, feels suspiciously like grief.

It's always been my belief that women have earned the right to choose to stay home or work. Either choice is just as valid and just as meaningful, and it's great that we live in times that that choice exists so we don't HAVE to do one or the other.

I've also always known that I'm not built to be a stay at home mom. I'd go completely insane.And no doubt, I would take Mike and Logan with me.

But, that being said, that suspiciously grief-like emotion is really grabbing me in the past few days. I'm finding it hard to believe that 12 weeks have gone by so quickly. My head knows that it's better all around that I go back, but my heart is already crying.

I don't want to leave my little boy at home to grow up without me. I guess every parent goes through that at some point, and no doubt multiple times at major life intersections. I'm starting to really get a glimpse of what it must be like for my Mom and Dad to have me live so far away, to have watched me make the decision to move to Seattle, then Germany and now San Diego, instead of somewhere that would have been closer.  Their hearts must have broken a thousand times in the course of my life, which has been an endless series of leave takings.

So, Monday morning, it seems that I will have my heart broken for the first time....but it is unlikely to be the last.