So, tomorrow.

Tomorrow, I go back to work. After three months on maternity leave, I now have to get settled in my upstairs office and get chained to the desk for eight hours (at least) on internal conference calls, client calls, project planning calls, etc. Two or three weeks from now, I have to get back on the road to travel to my clients a total of one week a month (at least). Not just day trips, but overnighters instead, with a night or two in a hotel (at least). (That pesky "at least" seems to pepper my phrases extensively nowadays.) Working from home is certainly a plus, but the traveling has not been fun for years. And now, especially now, it will be even harder.

So I kick myself when I think back to my college days twenty years ago when I was an English and Creative Writing major. I had lofty dreams for my future, so when I walked across the stage at the University of Maryland and received my degree from a professor who loved my work, I was massively proud of myself, secure in my next steps in life. Another professor loudly applauded who even offered me an opportunity to send my work to him so he could help edit it and advise me.

I NEVER did ANYTHING. I squandered it. Life got in the way? Nah. More like I just let a whole bunch of silly things cloud my next steps and the years just flew by. I am ever the envious one of all my blogging friends who actually use their writing degrees in the real world and who stick with it. (In case you're wondering, I'm thinking of Write Meg! That young lass is just doing things right.)

My degree merely served as a piece of paper to get a "better" job, or so I thought. I never continued to practice the craft other than the occasional smash of stream of consciousness writing when I was bored. (And no, I do not count emails and PowerPoints and contract reviews as writing.) I didn't pursue any of the dreams I had at that time because, hell, I glamorized an image in my head that I needed a job to make a paycheck so I could eat. Woe is me. I just didn't have time, I told myself, to do what I needed to do to get into the job of my dreams later. I didn't want to sacrifice.

Now, twenty years later, I realize I have worked my ass off to have a job that is all tough corporate but, unfortunately, absolutely zero passion. It's important work, and I'm glad to have it, but why? WHY? Why wouldn't I have plugged away to be in an industry I loved, that made me thrilled to go to work each day? Instead, I strayed so far from it that now, as my sweet son sleeps next to me, I realize I have regretfully paid my dues for something which keeps me up late, very late at night. But my sleepless nights are not for the excitement of what I do every day, but simply because I dread the list of things that just have to get done. The list is never interesting. It is never fun. It just, well, is.

Yes, this post has a harsh title. In comparison to the rest of the world, it wasn't a stupid life at twenty-one, relatively speaking. But, oh, it is so cathartic to imagine what I would love to tell my silly and naive twenty-one-year-old self, so that perhaps the hands of time could be kinder now in an alternate universe. Piddly silly little stress at the time. One little girl who, at the time, did not respect the amazing things life would one day give her, and that if she absolutely had to be at work, away from these amazing things, then it better be for something she truly enjoyed. Pay your dues early for the things you want later, I should have repeated to myself. But no.

And, because a post should always have pictures. Behold, my son is introduced to the snow for the first time. I sort of like the photo in the top right as he, um, quietly... informs me that he's not pleased with his hat.

Hi, ho, hi, ho. It's off to work I go.

When once my house was organized and easily defined with what belonged in which room, it is now no more. I sit in these early morning hours with a sheet on the couch, a blanket, pillow, my phone, and my laptop. There is a bib on the armchair, along with a burp rag. Coffee sits in a cooled cup on the table, lukewarm at best. I try hard not to stare at the dust collecting in one corner.

Three months ago, a messy living room would have annoyed me, poking nagging reminders to clean before it got even worse. But this morning, it's hardly noticeable. I am so very happy. There is a sweet baby in the room, happily sucking on his pacifier, swaddled snugly in his "spaceship," as my husband and I like to call it. It gently moves from side to side, and I've picked the "car ride" setting. I hear my son's quiet sleep-laugh, and I smile. In my entire life, I never thought I'd sit here like this. I never thought I'd have children. I never thought I was mommy material. How wrong I was.

Only one thing darkens this moment. My notebook. It's open to a page filled with scribbles and outlines almost illegible, notations in the margins, check marks and cross-outs. It's the list of nannies.

I dread the notebook. It means I have to pick someone. Someone else who will take care of my son during the day. Someone else who will feed him when he's hungry and hold him when he cries. It means I have to go back to work soon. And even though I work from home, going back to work still means eight-hour days of conference calls, audits, project planning, and worst of all, traveling. Overnights in hotels, far away from the new little love of my life.

And so I absolutely must find the right person for my son, the perfect one, that "someone else" who will be the "next-best-thing-to-mommy-and-daddy" that a person can be. Is it possible? I'm sure it is, but... I just don't want to. I want it to just be me and my husband, and that's it. "Someone else" has a lot to live up to.

Photo credit of my sweet Dominic goes to Digital Graces

From fear to bliss. I am a new mom, but an old one. And the things I thought I once wanted in life are now no more.

The idea of being a stay-at-home mom never interested me before. A corporate working mom who traveled for business meetings and then rushed home to put her child to bed is what I always envisioned. Not because of the supposed glamor of it all (is it, really?), but because I thought I'd find equal value and joy in a corporate job, and that I would find satisfaction in balancing that with a child.

But now, in my late thirties/early forties (not telling you which), all I want to do in life is to raise my baby. I can't even believe it. I can't believe I have a beautiful baby that makes me question my life's choices for the future and I can't believe that I want to be home with him. I still shake my head that the only reason why I wake him up after a two-hour nap is because I want to see his beautiful eyes and hang out with him. I know I should let him sleep a little longer, but two hours of him sleeping makes me miss him! Friends from fifteen years ago never would have thought this about me. They'd probably laugh if they read this post. Not probably. They would.

I want to guide him and protect him and love him, and be the one he comes to when he needs a hug. I don't want someone else to do that while I am gallivanting about trying to write the proper corporate email.

Sadly, it doesn't make sense for me financially to be a stay-at-home mom. I need to keep working because of a silly little thing called bills and saving for the future, so it's such a battle for me internally to know what needs to be done, but dreaming of something else. Didn't I do all that daydreaming when I was a kid?

But one day, one day soon? I desperately hope something comes along that doesn't require the same amount of travel or stress. I've done the corporate life for fifteen years. I feel confident I can choose a different path and my self-esteem won't crumble in the least bit.

So today is a cold morning. The reality of maternity leave coming to an end soon looms over me. But I have a hot cup of coffee right now. A good book. And a very, very sweet baby to curl up with.

How can I not want to be a stay-at-home mom when I look at his sweet face?

This is where I've been. And also why I haven't read or posted as much this year, and most especially in the last month. My little love, Dominic, was born 11-22-13 at 12:14 a.m., 7 lbs, 12 oz and at 19.49 inches. I love everything about this perfect little sweetheart. My husband and I are so very, very blessed. Happy Holidays to you all! I most assuredly will not reliably return for a few months at least. I am much too happily busy elsewhere.