This is my last week of work. Well, at least work in the "traditional" sense. I am going to be staying at home with Camille!
I'm absolutely excited ... and big-time nervous, as well.
When I graduated college in 2004, I did some sales work for a family friend for the first year and a half of my new life in Charlotte. I then fought hard to switch industries to the corporate health and wellness field and scored a postion that I worked for a year and a half until I was contacted by my current employer. I have now been working there in the same field for 7.5 years, and I help companies implement health and wellness programs for the wellbeing of their employees. I am not a nurse, but I work on a large team of very sweet nurses and have enjoyed the opportunity to create really great relationships with them and also outside of our office walls -- with our clients. I
love them. They were so excited when I got engaged, then married, then when I passed on the news of Camille.
For the past year, I have had a wonderful situation -- I've been able to work from home 4-5 days a week and I have only had to spend one night away from home for work. Things have changed, though, and they now need a little more from me than what I can offer. At this point, resuming my very aggressive travel schedule just won't work with our family needs.
I let my manager know of this issue a month before what will now be my last day -- this Friday. We've added two new staff members who will be taking over my position, and I have every bit of confidence that they are going to take it and run with it. I am so impressed by them. I joked with them that our clients will say "April who?" :)
I do feel like it is a dream come true to be able to stay at home with Camille. I guess I wasn't expecting to feel so nervous about it, though. She has been in a wonderful daycare situation with teachers who care for her and teach her so much. Last week she came home with a "passport" and had pages for each place they had learned about. Adorable! So, I definitely feel like I have big shoes to fill there, but that's a good type of pressure to feel. I welcome that sort of pressure. It will keep me on my toes.
Of course I am nervous about a) going down to one income, and b) putting the additional stress and pressure on my husband to supply that. We will be watching our spending and reducing where we can. I've been taking steps to ready us for this change (like paying off my car recently). The tightened expenses will be very much worth it.
Having been in the workforce for 11 years, I am also scared to voluntarily exit it. At some point, when I need to or am ready to work again, I hope it is not really difficult to get hired again for a somewhat niche career like mine.
The past few weeks have been difficult -- having really great, productive days at work that make me feel proud for what I've accomplished and how far I've come. Feeling powerful in a dress and heels. Having a reason to have curled hair by 8am. Having major structure to my day. It is hard to move away from this to the unknown when exiting the workforce.
I hope you don't mind, but I am going to turn off comments on this post, just because I don't want the comments to sway one way or another about the greater benefit of staying at home moms or working moms for my other mama readers. I absolutely welcome emails (alizadventures@ymail.com) but just want to stay sensitive to what I truly believe in ... that
you have to do what works out best for you, for your family, and for what makes you the happiest! For different families, this means different things.
Thanks for letting me share about this big change that is happening with our family!
