Last day of maternity leave

So ends another chapter of my life and so begins a new one. It’s hard to believe that this is my last day of maternity leave and I’ll be sitting in my office on Monday morning. Several months ago I would have gladly returned to work, now I’m almost petrified. Dedicating an entire year of your life to one little person is hard to let go. I guess I’m afraid of how I’ll readapt to work life. To make matters more interesting, I’ll be transitioning into a new job upon my return; for three weeks I’ll be traveling between my old and new office, closing files at one and learning the ropes at the other.

To make a long story short, I was head-hunted by a colleague at the end of the summer for a position within my organization that I had aspired to work in for quite some time. I was generously offered a six month assignment to learn the ropes and get my foot in the door so that, hopefully, I’ll be the ideal candidate for the job when it goes up for competition. Seeing as our organization cannot do a straight deployment to a new positions, my colleague opted to give me the proverbial “kick at the can” so that I can gain more experience and see if this is an area that I want to remain in. While the timing sucks (very difficult asking your boss to grant you permission to leave for half a year, when you haven’t even returned from maternity leave), I would have been crazy not to jump at the opportunity. And so, not only am I experiencing the nervousness of starting something completely new, I’m also coping with the emotions attached to leaving Drew fulltime in daycare. Essentially, I’m a bag of nerves right now.

So how am I spending the last day of maternity leave? I’ll be treating myself to a haircut and highlights, followed by some shopping for a few new outfits to wear to work. Sadly, I still don’t fit into any of my old work clothes – somehow I don’t think yoga pants and drool stained t-shirts will make a good impression of the new coworkers. In the afternoon, I’ll be cleaning and prepping the house for Drew’s 1^st Birthday party this weekend. I feel bad that he is at daycare on my last day of maternity leave, but thankfully we had the past few days to play and enjoy together. I still can’t believe that my baby boy is turning 1. It has been a year of ups and downs, the path hasn’t always been rosy, but I’m ending maternity leave on high. I’m proud of the mother I have become and I’m equally proud of both my hubby and Andrew – we have all grown up this year and our lives changed for the better. While I’m sad to be ending this chapter of my life, I look forward to moments we will share together as a family. While there are tears in my eyes right now, I’ve no doubt that there will be plenty of smiles in the future for us.