The Return

Well, it is official; I have returned to the land of the living workforce. In truth, I’m not sure what I expected when I returned. I suppose part of it was the expectation of a little more fanfare. It was all too easy to fall back into the work routine. In my head, I suppose I envisioned food, drink and general merriment and noise coming back with almost an open house atmosphere as people stopped by to say hello and welcome back. After all, I’ve been gone for the better part of three months. But in truth I am sitting here doing less than what I’ve been doing all the time I’ve been off, especially in these last couple weeks So I find myself sitting here feeling quite lethargic, almost to the point of abject sleepiness, so much so to the point where I am actually sitting at my desk dozing as I try to write this blog.

Then I came to the realization of what was missing. One, the time during which I returned is our quiet time; students have finished their research papers, exams, and semesters, so this place is a barren wasteland with no students. On top of that, I also realized that I didn’t tell many people, “Hey I’m back,” save my immediate office mates, so that canceled the idea of the open house. Second, the last time I returned, it was for an OCCASION, and that explained the lack of cake, cookies, and pastries (I did manage to scrounge up a cereal bar).

Finally, the biggest reason that there was no fanfare or big hoopla was this: there is no Ayden to complete the occasion. Yes, my son has become the mainstay show stealer each time I came to visit during my prolonged absence. And don’t get me wrong: unlike the past two days where I’ve been so absorbed with working on packing and the house that I’d been too busy to miss him, today I have thought about my little one a whole lot, even though I had a great opportunity to chit chat with my partner-in-crime at work.

So what has this industrious worker been doing to keep herself busy? Well, I just mentioned talking to my partner in crime. Truthfully, she’s probably been used to not talking as much for the last few months that it will take her sometime to get used to the morning routine again. I also brought in those boxes of books and sorted them. In addition, I also went through a lot of my emails that I didn’t want to sort through at home. Though I still have 249 in my inbox, it’s a far more manageable number than the almost 400 I had when I came in this morning. I feel confident that I can knock that out by the end of the week. So I’m kind of proud of the progress I’ve made.