The First Week Back

There are so many mixed emotions as I’ve returned back to work this past week. It’s been a roller coaster emotionally that I’ve been able to keep to myself between the hours of 9:00am – 4:30pm, but prior to that and after I’m a mess. I don’t share that in a cry for sympathy as much as I just need to write it and read it back to myself. Reassure myself that it’s completely okay to not want to return to work and know that something has to change. I’ve been at this place before, actually three years ago when Kai was born and I swore to myself that I needed to be home with him. It didn’t happen.

However, as I’ve anticipated returning to work I’ve been faced with a question that I leave unanswered in hopes that it will just “figure itself out.” I mean who can truly answer what they want to do with their life? Well many people can, I’ve just been in the category of those that cannot pinpoint exactly what they want. Because how can one have what they love beautifully collide with a way of living? So when I’m asked I feel stuck and then too easily discouraged. Thinking that there are only a select few in life that really can do what they love and not live in a cardboard box.

So I started soul searching while on maternity leave this time around instead of starting a business, trying to make things work, and measuring/calculating a strategy of “success.” Because what I love I can’t say would bring monetary success, or at least I couldn’t see it that way. Over a year ago I started, but never fully finished a book from a bible study I briefly attended. So I picked it back up, because I’ve got nothing to lose. In conjunction with that I had started the two books I shared in a previous post. Note to self: finish what you started…there is something so freeing about that. So in the process of actually sitting and writing down my roles, hopes for each of them, and what I really want my life to tell and say – I realized several things.

1. I can do FIVE things well, and they all impact making who I am a better person.
2. You don’t have to work to live forever, but you do have to work at whatever it is.
3. What I really want isn’t just to be home with my kids, but it most certainly is a driving force.

Though there are so many other things I’m taking in right now. I’ve found that as difficult as re-entering this season of working I know it doesn’t have to be forever. Setting goals is going to be key to getting to where I want to be – which completely goes against my normal let’s see where life takes me type of attitude. So that is what must be done now. Making lists and checking them off. Staying accountable, which is easier said than done… and most importantly NOT QUITTING (whew I said it out loud).

Not just reading and blogging…but applying. The first week back at work has been tough, I miss my boys terribly and the adjustment feels like torture. BUT it’s not impossible and in the words of Oh from the movie Home “we haves hope.”