Leaps

Well.

Do you ever have those weeks where you don't seem to do much and then in one day you make a huge decision and ACT on it and then you sort of feel like you need a breather? I'm having one of those. Thank you, and please pass the chocolate I need to self-medicate over here.

I just put in my notice that I'm not returning to the workplace.

Please, excuse while I breathe deeply into this paper bag for a moment.



Ok. Here's the thing. I know that there are a lot of women out there who have kids and work and they love it. There are a lot of women for whom working is an absolute necessity. I don't intend my choice to be in any way, shape or form a judgment on anyone else's choice and I really don't want this post to be one of those which sparks the Great Debate about Working Moms vs. Stay at Home Moms. To each her own, I say. And also live and let live. And while we're at it, why don't we just allow each other to make our own choices and respect each other for those choices without feeling the need to superimpose our own choices on to everyone else.

I got a little defensive there, didn't I? Sorry about that.

In spite of what we've been telling people, we've sort of known that this day was coming. There was a brief moment when I thought that the workplace might change my position to fit my educational background and had that happened I probably would have been tempted to stay, but it didn't so the whole issue is a moot point.

When we started talking about having a child we also started squirreling money away because neither of us knew how it would turn out and I didn't want to be faced with falling head over heels in love with my child only to be forced economically to return to work and put him into the care of strangers. And in spite of having money squirreled away, I'm still sort of freaking out.

It's not that I don't love my child. I do. I love him with a love that is fierce and protective and sometimes sappy. I get snappy and impatient and annoyed at his inability to conform to my schedule (HA! I'm funny and delusional, aren't I?) but it doesn't change how I love him. And from the moment they pulled him out of me and I heard him cry, I knew. I knew that I would never be able to leave him.

And yet. I have been horribly poor. Having been horribly poor, I'm consequently (maybe even irrationally) terrified of poverty.

I should qualify this ramble by saying that the Husband has always seen to it that our needs are always met. We have never been hungry or faced with eviction or had to seek public assistance or anything of the kind. He always manages to make things come together. He is brilliant that way. And he has no fear whatsoever of going to a single income...that, my friends, is all me.

And I know. I KNOW we're making the right decision. Even if I went back to work at this point, just looking at the cold hard numbers my salary would go to pay for child care, health insurance for the Boy and formula (because continuing to breastfeed would be nigh unto impossible) and that would be it. Affectively, I would be an indentured servant to other people while paying them to take care of my child. That's not how I want to live my life.

And so I sit. Stuck in between my abject fear of poverty and cold hard reality and moony love for my boy.


Well, given the actions of today I suppose I'm not so much sitting. I'm leaping. Into a new life or a new version of our life. And yes, those of you who know me well will know that I won't sit still for long. Once the Boy is a bit bigger, a bit stronger, a bit more independent, there are projects to research, things to write, edit and (hopefully) publish.

But for now, I'm reading him the collected works of Robert Frost and smelling his head.