Back to the real world.

I wonder if anyone can sense just how excited I am I pondered on the train. I couldn’t wipe the big goofy smile off my face. Excitement fizzed inside me like a shaken bottle of sparkling wine. It was my first day of commuting by train to my new job and I felt like a kid on their birthday. I wandered through the enormous train station, swarms of commuters milling about around me, then stood at the gaping mouth of the main entrance blinking at the sight before me: people yakking on phones, billboards advertising food festivals and flea markets, trams rattling past, bikes whooshing by and layers of graffiti. It felt as though someone had turned the volume and brightness up just a little too high but I loved it. It was a sensory explosion. The fizz threatened to spill out. I peeked into courtyards, read menus, perused window displays and gazed up at church spires. The city buzzed, pulsed and vibrated. I let the feeling wash over me, soothing my social deprivation like a balm over cracked skin. I was back in the real world. The juxtaposition from rural life just a few weeks earlier was dramatic.

For too long I had felt cut off from the world. When I look back over the last 3 and a half years since becoming a mother: more specifically the mother to a child with a rare disease in a global pandemic, I feel like I was broken into a thousand pieces and put back together again, yet the pieces never quite fit together. Some of the edges that once matched perfectly now seemed too jagged or smooth. Some of the pieces were missing, long gone. I didn’t quite know who I was anymore.

Life didn’t change overnight. Slowly but surely it had evolved into something that no longer resembled my previous life. Instead of working 5 days a week, I worked a few hours here and there – mostly online. Instead of going into a bustling city, I drove to an office in a quiet village. Instead of doing sports and meeting friends, I mostly only spoke to therapists and doctors. Hats with Friend, Wife, Teacher, Swimmer, Nature-lover and Foodie were hung up and replaced with Mother, Advocate, Therapist and Caregiver. I no longer had any sense of who I was. I was completely disconnected from my previous self.

Squinting at the sight before me in the bustling city, I knew that I need connection with humans. I need it like flowers need sunshine. Online friendships have been a lifeline in dark times but they are not always enough. Working entirely from home is convenient but it’s just not for me. Being a mother is beautiful but I need to work. I need to leave the house and I NEED childcare. I need a separate life. I have to be a part of society in this way. I know some caregivers who are more than happy to stay home and others who have no other choice. I recognise that for me it is a privilege that I am able to work. I don’t write these words to criticise others but to share my experience of returning to working more and outside the home.