Some Thoughts On Winding Down

So despite being sick and generally feeling less-than-tiptop, I went into work today. Because there's so much to do, and so much to pass off to my coworker, and the responsible, determined-to-finish-up-projects part of me wants to feel like I'm wrapping things up in a satisfying and professional way. I actually did get lots done today, although I left an hour early, feeling like a wrung-out washcloth, and went home and crashed out in bed for an hour before the kid got home.

But aside from that, what I realized today is that far from experiencing the worker drone's excitement at getting ready to leave work for awhile on a nice long "vacation" (well, we all know that maternity leave with a brand new baby is no vacation, but you know what I mean), this process of winding down is actually making me a little bit sad. I'm actually going to miss work. Not so much the individual things that I do every day, the specific tasks and the daily slog, but the less obvious things: the feeling of being useful, of having a purpose, of succeeding at things I've put effort into; the autonomy of setting my own pace, the ebb and flow of the office day, which is under my own control, for the most part (as opposed to, say, the control of a small, hungry baby); the companionship of coworkers (and certain business contacts) that I spend a great deal of my time with, who know me well and whom I actually do enjoy; the familiarity of routine. Go figure. Work isn't always or automatically a bad thing. It's just the balancing of work and life that is sometimes out of whack.

But rather than get into a whole digression on how our society makes it difficult to balance work and life and how especially working moms are forced to make less than ideal choices, I think I'll just stop and go tuck the kid in.