The First Day Back is the Hardest

I left a piece of my heart in the daycare center last Thursday. After a blissful 12-week maternity leave it was time to return to budgets, workflows, and managing my fantastic team. Returning to work was good, hard, painful, liberating, exciting, exhausting, and strange all at the same time.

(Photo by Alyssa Crawford Photography)

I think all moms feel this pain at some point. Eventually we must leave our children, whether it be to return to the office after maternity leave, dropping them off at their first day of kindergarten, or leaving them in a dorm room at a university. We all must endure that feeling of our heart being down in our stomach.

I got through that first day with a lot of support from friends and coworkers, and especially from my aunt who is a working mom with two kids herself. And you know what? The next day was easier. Now, after just completing my third day, I’m feeling a bit more in the swing of things. I will spend a lot of time trying to balance my roles as mother, wife, friend, employee, and supervisor in the coming months. I know it won’t be easy, but, as with a lot of things, it’s the first day that’s the hardest.