A Few Random Thoughts

In order to ease back into work, I’m going to try and blog daily through the month of March. I had intended to continue writing and blogging throughout my maternity leave but I eventually decided that I just needed to rest, lay low for a while, and enjoy Jude without the pressure of work or deadlines. I did, and I’m all the better for it. But it’s time to get back to the office and I figure blogging’s a fantastic way to flex those dormant creative muscles. (I did, somehow, manage to add a few thousand words to the novel, bringing me to a grand total of 50,000. Halfway there!)

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Predictably, I couldn’t wait to get back to work. I hadn’t anticipated that I would want to get back into it this early, but I’m glad however that I did schedule two months off because unlike women who found they were well enough to get right back into work, I couldn’t. While I’ve had an easy time with the baby, who hasn’t been at all difficult, my recovery’s been slow and it’s felt like I’ve taken two steps forward, one step back in the process. Every time I think I’m closer to healing, something comes up and I’m back to “taking it easy.” That said, I did break down and send out a few pitches a week or so after childbirth (shhh, don’t tell) so I have deadlines waiting for me already.

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Speaking of the novel, it’s time to get started on it again. I intentionally put the work aside during the last few months of my pregnancy because it’s a bit of a dark subject and I didn’t want to deal with the intensity of it during that time. I’ve got a lot of paid work and several yearly goals to catch up on, so I’m not setting any deadlines or putting any pressure on myself to get it done, but now that I’m halfway there, I can see the finish line and it’s just a matter of writing something, anything, regularly.

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Parenting, I’m discovering, is very much about having the right attitude. Once you get used to the idea that you’re not going to get much sleep, for instance, it becomes easier. The key is to stop resisting and start accepting the days and nights for what they are. I’m beginning to see the ways in which my life will be different, and while I had an initial reluctance, I’ve found that it’s all easier to cope with if I just accept that there are some days in which I’ll get hours of time and some days in which just minutes and that there will be, at least in the immediate future, more dirty diapers than deadlines, more bottles than books. I’m beginning to take little pockets of time here and there, while the baby naps or at night when everyone’s asleep. I’ve managed to get through the hundreds of e-mails that accumulated during my absence and catch up on the blogs I read regularly. I never had the illusion that this would be easy, but it doesn’t have to be endlessly difficult either. I’m trying to take each day as it comes, accepting it for whatever it brings, enjoying both the work and the family part of it. Flexibility: my new middle name.