In addition to inhabiting my personal, post-vacation lala land, I have something else on my mind: I'm leaving my job on May 31st. Crap! How will I buy stuff I don't need??
Making this decision to leave my job in order to spend more time with my daughter has been hard for the usual reasons. I like coming to work and interacting with adults; working on graphics projects provides a great opportunity for creativity, albeit not every project or task is exciting; answering people's technical questions and being out in the world makes me feel like I might actually know something and be a useful, productive, and sometimes even interesting human being; this is the best place I've ever worked as far as the co-worker and boss relationship; the paycheck that gets automatically deposited into my checking account is awfully nice validation, especially when converted into a shoe/beauty/fashion/craft validation goodness. It's easy to get nostalgic when I think of all the good things.
What I won't miss are the mornings where I'm late and totally stressed out and feeling guilty over leaving my crying/needy/sleepy/stressed child at daycare when it would have been so nice to just STAY HOME and not panic for a change.
Humans are multi-dimensional, complicated beings (except for Britney Spears) (sorry, cheap celebrity bashing is ugly) and so I have been feeling both sad and excited, among other things, about this new prospect. However, I am not confused by feeling all of the widely disparate emotions, even though this is new territory for me.
I am not normally comfortable being the one to affect change. I am more comfortable and happy knowing I am normal and just like everyone else. That's why I enjoy every instance of a coworker telling me congratulations, and that they wish they had done/could do the same thing. This isn't a work vs. stay at home debate, this is about life and decisions and changes.
My life has been about stress and the bottleneck of time and responsibility. Being somewhere, all the time, with very little personal time. I had a baby 12 months into a new job which, surprise! didn't leave me any vacation time. I was back to work after four short months. I kept working year after year after that (and gratefully so, when I got divorced and was able to support myself) but now things have changed. I look at this change as a gift I am giving my daughter. I'm reducing her stress level by giving her a break from her full-time daycare schedule.
I don't question my decision, and so when the sad pull of remembering what I am leaving behind creeps into my thoughts, I just remember all the stressful mornings and when I felt like my efforts were futile.
The only question I have now is how the heck I am going to finance my fancy French facial product habit. Wait, I think I know: b-u-y r-e-g-u-l-a-r s-o-a-p o-r f-i-n-d a p-a-r-t-t-i-m-e j-o-b, d-u-m-b d-u-m-b!
1 comment:
You can do this. It will be hard, and different, and sometimes frustrating and a big adjustment but you can do it. :)
And there are tons of other moms in blogdom doing the same thing. You'll find support here.
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