Back in the Cube

Well, leave is over. I have traded in my sweats for dress pants. Back to reality. Lucia and I had a good run.

Our final week together was not as eventful as I had hoped. After staying home and cleaning on Monday, I got a mild case of food poisoning on Tuesday night, which negated the trip to Fenway Park that I had planned for Wednesday (Natalia's class was taking a field trip to Fenway, so we were going to tag along). Thankfully Lucia took two long naps that day. This allowed me to do the same, and by the evening, I had generally returned to health. These were the only two siestas I took in my entire 12 weeks off.

The transition back to work has not been too difficult...yet. I didn't check my work email at all while I was away, so my first order of business was sifting through nearly 1000 unread messages on Monday morning. No matter. It was a concrete task for me to slowly work through on my first couple days back. Of those 1000, about 75% were immediately sent to the trash (largely newsletters, announcements, and spam). I think I responded to about 15 messages total.

But by Wednesday I had finished my initial task, and it was time to actually get back to the work that I am supposed to do--writing about the people, ideas, and projects of my organization. This has proved harder to do. My mind is still on leave. The prospect of researching story ideas, interviewing people, writing and editing is crushing me. I am starting at zero again: I have no leads and no ongoing stories. Everything is beginning anew. But I am also only a few days removed from the much more placid life of maintaining a house and caring for a baby. And while this existence was by no means easy, it never felt like work. Work feels like work.

I had also forgotten how tiring an office job can be. I arrived home exhausted on both Monday and Tuesday, despite having done little more than sit at a computer and sort through email all day.  I was always tired when I was on leave, but that made sense--I seldom sat down, and was constantly out doing errands or trying to get Lucia to eat or sleep. But at the office? There was little activity and, certainly, less immediacy about anything I was doing. It was just me and my computer. My mind wandered and grew tired. The sedentary life saps energy.

In between meetings and emails, I thought a lot about the 12 weeks I left behind--and the similar leaves that I took with Andres and Celia. They were all different, each challenging and rewarding in its own way. Natalia and I tripped over each other a lot when we were both home with Andres; we both wanted to be so quick to respond every time he cried. My second leave was marked by fieldtrips, cooking experiments, and the birth of this blog. I set high expectations for those 10 weeks. I exited each of those leaves refreshed and looking forward to the next time I would be able to spend weeks at home with a newborn. And, as such, I tried hard to preserve my sick and vacation days to help make the next leave a reality.

But now, having just finished my three months at home with Lucia--and with no plans to give her another brother or sister--I feel like I have entered a new phase of my life. I sit at my desk and see weeks and weeks of work stretched out in front of me, a yawning expanse of emails and meetings and deadlines, with no end--and certainly no 12 week respites--in sight. I have reentered the real world. This is where I'll be for a while.

So now, what to do? I am 36 years old, married, with three beautiful children. I have no plans to drop out of work any time soon. I am in the middle of my life. But this return has also given me a fresh start. I am looking ahead, nostalgic for the time I have spent at home, wondering what is next.