And then... You have maternity leave

You hear everyone around you chattering: ‘Oh, how nice! Finally time off! Leave! How great!’

Well, I find it especially strange. And quite difficult. No joke. Maybe it's just me (or my job), but it seems very uninviting to not have to work for so long. What will change in the office when I'm changing diapers? What will I miss while I'm busy with 18 feedings a day? I do need the rest, because honestly, getting through a day without afternoon naps just doesn't work anymore. But that official leave - it's really about to start. Not having to do anything anymore. No deadlines, appointments, colleagues, articles, alarms, days at the office... Just me and the belly. And my bed and bath. Bizarre.

I know why I'm stepping out of the colleague group chat with a little tear. It feels so real now, so close, so definitive. Motherhood is really about to begin and I still don't know what that's like,

what it will be like and how I will feel about it. Will I miss working? Will I look at my laptop with a lost gaze, which for the first time in its life gets to stay in its case for weeks? What am I saying: for months. I won't be working for months. I've never experienced that before. Of course, it's nice to focus on yourself. But honestly: if you have really enjoyable work, then working doesn't feel like something heavy, like a punishment, like a chore. It actually gives me energy. And I'm now saying goodbye to all that ‘ordinary’ – the umpteenth thing that is changing in my life in a short time. The ‘ordinary’, which we often take for granted. Work is just work. Yes, ha, you THINK that – until you no longer have it. Then you suddenly miss that plain coffee with your buddy at the office. Then you suddenly miss that rhythm, of the day, of the week. It's just a bit much. Your daily life is mainly your work. When that falls away, then a part of yourself also falls away giving away.

Leave is also a kind of farewell for me. Farewell to a period without children, to my adult life without children. Because the reality is that I won't be able to work as much as I did for the time being. You give up that time. You need time for your family. Fortunately, I have enough examples around me to see how well that can work: working in combination with children. Just look at May with her three beautiful girls. Or at Daan, also a mother of two champions. Then I see them hustling at the editorial office while they have already dressed and taken their kids to school and teachers in the morning, and I think: thank goodness, it can actually be done: having a career, having ambitions, and being that lovely mother who is also back on time at the schoolyard to pick up the bunch.

So. Here I go. The laptop is closing. Seriously closing. And I'm going to relax, read a book, sleep while I still can, and very secretly, in secret... You will miss.

Bye dear Amayzines!