It's Friday, Issue #61

A report on the Mommy Experiment

This week, my children returned to school and I returned to my unencumbered weekdays. On Monday I felt euphoric. I went to an exercise class, answered a bunch of emails, and did some teaching-related administrative tasks. I finished the day by going to the coffee shop to do something truly luxurious: read a novel. For fun.

On Tuesday, everything shifted. I felt unmoored. For one thing, I missed my children with a depth that surprised me. I missed Mickey, and even more specifically, I missed holding him. He loves to cuddle and kiss and be kissed, and he often holds his soft cheek against mine and says something like, “Oh my darling, you’re so cute.” I felt his absence like an ache. I missed Bean. I kept wondering which class he was in, if his knees were hurting. I missed Ginger. What was she doing at that very moment? Was she feeling carefree or nervous? When I went to pick them up, I was ravenous for information.

Part of this is that I started to work on Tuesday. In a few weeks, I’ll be teaching a course at Caltech that I’ve never taught before, so I need to thoroughly plan it. I have a lot ahead of me: picking out texts to assign, structuring a syllabus, writing lesson plans and lectures…the whole deal.

I also printed out my novel-in-progress. Once I started reading it, I realized with a sinking feeling that will be familiar to the fellow novelists in the room that I have a lot of work ahead of me. I had hoped that the time away would give me a useful clarity beyond, “This is bad.” It did not.

By Wednesday, I felt panicked. I have so much to do! It’s unfortunate, then, that I seem to possess zero drive to do any of it. I’m even having a hard time writing this newsletter. Focus, Lepucki! I guess my brain is still in summer mode. I don’t usually wish for my kids to rescue me from my work life, but that’s precisely what’s happening. It scares me a little. Re-entry has been more difficult than I expected.

Overall, my summer plan of pausing my career to take care of my kids was a success, though it wasn’t a static, sun-soaked image of joy. Here’s a rundown of the good and the bad from my season of mothering. Read on for the juicy stuff…