First Day
by Neha Ruch
I've been dreading today for a few weeks now. For everyone else it's hopefully a slightly hungover, very lazy Sunday welcoming the New Year. For our little family, it's the punctuation mark at the end of that first, novel, magical and intense year with a child and the beginning of many other phases that I'm certain will start to blend together.
Watching him become a person over the course of one year - curious, playful, kind and sometimes shy - has been the greatest privilege of my life. I've relished being within the first year because it's given me license to unapologetically focus on being a new mother. Someone sent me a text this morning congratulating me on graduating from that title but I'll miss it dearly. Without it, I have no title. Maybe I worried that at the one year mark someone would tell me time's up but I've made it to the first of January and the choice for flexible work life and a focus on family life still feels right for me and us.
For context, I returned to brand consulting work on Bodie's 5 month mark, going into an office two days a week and spending the rest of the week raising my son. This was the beginning of straddling a strange middle ground where the world and the workplace moved on and I was entering as a new person.
Outside of Mondays and Tuesdays, I spend my weeks very happily wrapped up in watching Bodie grow and explore. It is without a doubt the most fulfilling job I've ever had. There are hard moments but the hardest still have been the quiet moments by myself pondering how I could be better or do more. On the days when someone asks me what I've done all day or I go down the Internet rabbit hole absorbing day to day flashes from the superwomen we're surrounded with, I consider the career trajectory I rerouted from to be knee deep in dishes from Bodie's forgotten, albeit home-made, lunch, and I worry. I worry about what my husband thinks of me, our finances, and if Stanford wishes they'd given my spot in our class to someone who is out there being a superwoman. And then when the worry passes, I realize that for all the change or impact I could be creating somewhere in the world, what I get to do at home is most meaningful for me right now.
If I could, I'd have you over for a playdate and coffee, maybe rosé, but for the time being Mother Untitled is my way to openly share and connect with other women about the choice to prioritize motherhood and creative ways to make room for all else.
Featured Image via Pinterest
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