Six months

Six months without writing.  Am I surprised?  Not entirely.  Despite writing all day, every day for my career, the time I am able to devote to my own writing is difficult to snatch.  Strangely enough, however, it's a symptom (or a cause?) of something I've been meditating on a great deal recently: the isolation of the working mama.

I hadn't realized until recently that, in my current situation, I have very little contact with other working mothers.  None of my direct colleagues have children (or even spouses).  Outside of work, the other mamas I spend any time with are all those who stay home with their babies.  Although I hope that when we make the move to a new city and a new (and larger) work organization, I'll be able to make more connections with working mamas, I'm alone right now.  And, in retrospect, starting my first "new career" job as a first-time mom without the support system of other working moms has been incredibly difficult.

When taking a break at work, I often find myself browsing the "mommy blogs."  And while often this provides a panacea for the ache I feel at being separated from my baby during the day, I often harbor a nagging irritation that these blogs portray one type of perspective: those of the mama who stays home with her babies.  I can't deny that it makes sense.  Working as a blogger allows one the flexibility to stay home.  And working outside the home doesn't always allow the time to also blog.  You see how well this blog has worked out.

So no matter where I turn, I've had so little modeling of working motherhood.  I wish I had realized this sooner.  I wish I had thought, before starting work, to line up some kind of support system of working mamas, to seek out my people.  I wish I hadn't spent the last seven months feeling All the Feels every single working mama feels but simultaneously feeling like I'm the only one. 

I feel like I have to say it: the experience of working outside the home is seismically different from staying at home to care with your babies.  I suppose this isn't a ground-breaking realization.  I suppose others have said it before me.  But what is so surprising to me is that, after a certain point, when I need advice or commiseration, I no longer want to talk just to "other moms" be they working or stay-at-home.  I want--need--to hear from other working mamas.  I need to hear how they do it.  But more than that, I need to know how they feel and how they manage the daily emotional battle of leaving their babies every. single. morning.  I need to talk to working mamas whose babies are grown and find out if it gets easier.  I need to know what they did to make it work.  I need to know that their babies still grew up beautiful, and that they still loved their mamas, at the end of the day.

I can't get this from mamas who stay home with their babies.  I just can't.