Off to work, we go

I always knew in my mind, that after my kids start going to school fulltime - that I would go back to work. 

Now, that it's been 9 years since I stepped in a corporate work environment, the idea of going back to work makes me uneasy - not because I don't want to work but because I feel as if I have lost confidence in my ability and that I don't have the drive to survive in a work environment.

Looking back, I don't recognize the girl that stepped out of engineering college. I was ambitious, career minded and driven. Almost like a closet feminist, in a bad way. 

Being a female in an engineering field, it always felt like women were in the minority and there were more men to compete with. 

I looked down on women who chose to stay at home to look after kids. I thought that they had it easy and that the husband was taking care of the wife because she couldn't take care of herself.

One of my first arguments with my husband before we got married was when he said that he would like for his wife to stay at home for a few years to take care of the kids when they were little. In my lopsided view of feminism, that seemed like an ultimate insult that a woman would have to sacrifice and do something that seemed like a lower choice. He dropped the topic and told me that it would purely be my decison, and we left it at that.

My mother fell sick during my pregancy and died a day after Daniel was born. I think something shifted in my thought process after that day. I knew that I had to cherish and make the most of whatever time I get with my loved ones, and this included my son, who is my precious gift. I made the decision to stay at home, knowing fully well that it would be a challenge to go back to work after taking a long break.

Today, I struggle with not feeling productive with how I manage my time. It seems like I have the day to plan or study and prepare, but I can't seem to do it. It is true that I have changed, and I cannot expect to go back to that goal-oriented person. Maybe, I don't want to. 

At any given time, there are four people in the home who depend on me. And, there are twenty different things to do whether it is keeping up with the kids' school work or volunteering, cooking, cleaning, the laundry, driving kids around, the dog, managing my father-in-law's insurance, doctors appointments. 

Some say that working moms have it worse because they manage work and the homes as well. I would both agree and disagree. There are things that I do now, that as a working mom I wouldn't be able to do. It's not that those things are not important. It just means that in the list of priorities, these things would fall off the radar because no one has the time to do it anymore. The work is not lesser or more - it's just different.

There should no longer be any guilt when someone asks me what I do at home. If I get a few hours to stare at the ceiling doing nothing, that should be absolutely fine. 😊

I pray that God would take whatever is left of me, and help me do the best with what I have when I go back to work. I also pray that this adjustment wouldn't be hard on the kids or me, for that matter. I also pray that He would lead my steps, where I don't feel the need to prove anything to anyone but can plan without procrastinating and do my work resting on Gods' grace rather than my might.