Anticipatory nostalgia: the feeling of missing something before it’s even gone – or a bittersweet longing for the present – is something that plagued the last few weeks of my maternity leave. Because as slow and sludgy as I found those first few months of motherhood, it’s true when they say that the days are long, but the years are short.
Before having my baby almost 11 months ago, I loved what I did, where I did it and the people I worked with, but for the best part of the last year, it’s all been far from my mind. My life has instead been ruled by a tiny little person and every high and low that comes with that. I found it increasingly difficult to marry that past version of me with my present. What do you mean that wake windows, breastfeeding and many (many) hours sitting on the floor were going to be replaced with writing, editing and Teams meetings? The two realities, in my mind, couldn’t co-exist.
But of course they can, can’t they? Like so many working mums that have come before me, when the time came to dust off my laptop and somehow remember my password, I did it. Yes, on my first day back in the office, I had to go to the loo and hold back tears as I looked at the stream of photos from my baby’s first full day without me. And yes, I was far from comfortable by the time I got off my (delayed) train home and had to wake my sleeping baby to feed her after several disastrous pumping fails. But I also got to enjoy adult conversations, have both hands free to eat my lunch and read more than half a page of a book.
Now, almost a month into returning to work, I still might not have mastered my breast pump and there might be a constantly overflowing washing basket hiding just out of view on my Teams calls, but I’ve proved to myself that the same person can in fact remember how to schedule an email, while also knowing every word to Say Hello To The Sun (IYKYK). And I’ll take that as a win.
Annie Simpson
Email Content Editor, Stylist
(and mum to Juni, 10 months)
