Subtitled: And Feeling Oh So Good
This week, I started my new job and the kids enrolled in daycare. What I thought would be a difficult experience turned into the best week of my life. Yes the babes cried a little when I dropped them off, but I knew they would be fine. And they were.
In fact, the times before I drop them off and after I pick them up, are better than they ever were when I stayed home with them. The biggest difference is quality. When I'm home, I am not on the computer, lying on the couch, or doing all the other things I used to do. Instead, we read stories, play games, and cuddle. I smother them with love and they return it willingly.
This week was busy and by the last day, I felt weary and sore. Yet, like all good workouts, I felt pumped. I have been happy, playful, and someone I actually want to be around. It's helped that Ben has had a "bye week" in school so transitioning from staying at home to working has been smooth for all parties.
My place of employment wouldn't be considered prestigious in much of the world's eyes, but, frankly, I would take fulfillment over prestige any work day. The demographic I work with is exactly who I want to work with after I get my master's degree and all the other GRAND plans I have for the future; thus, finding employment in a non-profit organization--at the grassroots level--now is basically like interning before I even start graduate school.
I suppose I wrote this because I have read so many accounts of women who bemoan the fact that they must work and leave their kids in a caretaker's hands and all week I have been waiting for those emotions to arise. They haven't and this tells me something: loving where you work really takes the edge off of not seeing your kids. It also alleviates the stress of being a mother by allowing me to get out of the house and in to a more productive environment. The big thing, for me, is that I went to work because I wanted to, not because I had to. Yes we need the money, but not to the point of if-I-don't-get-a-job-we'll-starve. It's more for the future. So I had time to find a job I wanted and now that I've started, I am feeling so good that I have to pinch myself to make sure I haven't drifted off into dreamland or some other alternate reality.
I am sure that Ben's workload will increase dramatically again this week, so I will be back on-line again if only to share the tales of my increasingly fairy-tale-like life. You know, the fairy tales that no one has ever heard: The abstract and eye-brow raising ones that sound made up. Yeah, those reflect my life far more than Cinderella ever did. Thank the stars.
