The passenger seat of my car is littered with due dates. There are the slips for my daughter's library books. Notes from students about deadlines for college recommendations. A cross country calendar. Coupons to Hallmark and Jewel with expiration dates circled. Our dry cleaning ticket. (I shouldn't really need to go to the dry cleaners but I absolutely hate to iron. And the lady is so nice. She has my information memorized and calls my husband by my maiden name. How could I not go?).
Sometimes it feels like life is all about due dates. After all, life as we knew it changed with one very big due date.
I don't mind deadlines. Due dates give a nice structure to tasks and there is something so gratifying about eliminating items on a to-do list. (I can't be the only one who has ever written something down that is already done just to have the satisfaction of crossing it off...). I like a clearly defined calendar and feel best when I know all that lies ahead. Even the completion of happy events like holidays feels like an accomplishment; while I'm always sad to pack away the Christmas decorations, I'm also inarguably anxious for the clean start (and bare home) of the new year.
Overall, I have a pretty positive working (if sometimes contentious - mostly related to the area of paper grading) relationship with due dates. However, there is one that I have blatantly ignored for months: my return to work date.
Today I faced the monster head on. I put my sweet bundle of bouncing, bubbling energy into her jogging stroller and walked to our sitter's home. My husband and I met with her a few weeks after our daughter was born. Then, standing in her kitchen with a baby-baby (our descriptor for infants) in my arms, the prospect of arranging for child care was purely intellectual. Yes, I would be returning to work in January and if we so chose, she would watch our child. I imagined that yes, it would be hard but the reality of actually leaving my daughter with another adult while I went to work was in the distant future. It would all work out.
Now the future is not so distant and while I know it will all work out, the situation is centered in my heart rather than my brain. Our sitter is fantastic. A mom of two sweetly spunky kids, she is a truly beautiful former engineer who seems to approach each day with her children with both joy and a clear lesson plan. She is calm incarnate - just sitting on her couch for twenty minutes made me feel Zen. In her graceful accent, she gently offered suggestions as to how our arrangements might work best for our two families while patiently incorporating her chatty four-year-old into our conversation. My daughter sat on her lap, staring at her with wide-eyes, curious but content. She assured me that I could call as much as I wanted to during the school day and that my daughter's presence would be a welcome one in her family. She was confident but not pushy, comfortable but respectful of my role as mom. She will not be my daughter's babysitter - she will be her first teacher. In the end, that difference made all of the difference for me.
The nightmares that whirled in my head as I walked to meet her quieted and I was left with a gut truth: my daughter will be safe, happy and cared for in her home. Even if I hate driving away from there each day.
In the meantime, I'm going to keep the January calendar firmly off the refrigerator until the last possible second. This is one due date I'm not going to circle.
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