The Desk Has Been Cleaned

Today is my last day of work. The beginning of my maternity leave. For 6 months. Man, that's wild to say! The longest "break" I've had from the working world since I started at this job 10 years ago (well 9.5...it will have been 10 years at the beginning of December) is 2 weeks at a time for my 2 longest vacations in Australia and Africa. It's a little bizarre to have a 6 month "vacation." Now, granted, my life is about to change completely and those 6 months will be spent trying to figure out what to do with a baby, not being on a carefree vacation, but still, I won't be "clocking in" to work for 6 whole months. I have to admit, I'm pretty excited and ready for the break.

In this day and age, I KNOW I'm extremely lucky to have a wonderful job at a wonderful company that compensates me well and allows me to live very comfortably. I have never underestimated that. However, I must admit, after almost 10 years at this company, I have experienced a little bit of burn out. Now, I've definitely have had periods of burn out over the span of this job, but I normally bounce back into my super motivated self in no time. However, since becoming pregnant, I have been dreading coming in almost every day. Now, likely, a lot of that has to be attributed to the fatigue that pregnancy brings...it doesn't exactly help you want to do anything. But, some of it, I'm sure, is just plain old burn out.

Something I do know about myself, though, is that I need to be a busy person....with endeavors that involve intellectual pursuits and adult socialization. Those are not things that really fall at the top of the child care ladder. Not to say it's not possible, but it's definitely more work to seek those things out if you were to be a primary caregiver for a child. So, I do think a working mom is what I want to be. Not that I have a choice given mine and Mike's current employment situation (ie, I have a paying job and he has not been able to find one since his lay off) but, choice or not, it is what I think I will prefer to do.

So, not only am I looking forward to having 6 months out of the working world, but I'm also looking forward to those 6 months being a time to begin to truly appreciate, again, the enjoyment of my career and to look forward to getting back to it in January 2010.