Back to work

Well, today was a great day for a quite a few reasons, but the biggest one is because I started back to work today. Dan spent the day with Emma and I got to see my friends for the start of my last month (my position was eliminated so my last day is April 2). I thought that I knew what today would be like...leaving Emma for the first time for a whole day, and all. I expected some tears (more from me than from her), some guilt, not being able to focus, and a variety of other struggles. Without a tear in sight I left Emma resting peacefully with her dad and drove my little convertible (Zoe) to my office. Once there I settled right in to my routine with some oatmeal and tea, then said hi to some people, and got reacquainted with my desk.

I left for lunch and realized how much I enjoy my job (which highlighted how much I'll miss it when I'm not working there anymore). Regardless of where I'm working or what I'm doing, I think that I'll always need some kind of work in my life to keep me balanced. I felt a little guilty for feeling so good about not having her with me, but my mom said that it just means I'm confident in the decisions that Dan and I have made regarding her care and me going back to work. I know it helped that Dan was the one watching her that first day and I got to see them for lunch, but I didn't feel like a bad mom for going back to work. It was actually relaxing to not have someone dependent on me 100% of the time. I was recharging from the past 14 weeks and I knew that when I went home I would be able to have fun with Emma and Dan and feel rejuvenated as opposed to exhausted.

Another reason it was a great day is because my manager sent me flowers and a card that everyone in the department had signed welcoming me back. I also had a follow up appointment from my eye surgery last week to remove the cataract in my left eye and everything is healing perfectly. My eye is still dilated and I already have 20/20 vision in that eye (great news).

So, the rest of this week will be a patchwork of daycare, but most of it's free so I can't complain. We'll see how it goes, but I have a good feeling about this.