Endings and Beginnings

(This is a bit of a ramble, so forgive me...)

It has been nearly a month now since Lily’s last day at Open Arms, the church-run daycare center where she’s been an afternoon regular since this time last year. As much as we didn’t want to put her there in the beginning, I confess we were sad to see her time there come to an end so soon. She was well-loved by teachers and children alike. She was constantly coddled and fawned over by the older kids, and the teachers never stopped marveling at how persistently cheerful Lily was. But, the decision to pull her out had as much to do with the substantial financial impact of her weekly tuition as it did with my suddenly finding myself with oh so much more time on my hands. You see, like the first domino tipped over, Lily’s farewell to daycare was merely the beginning of a series of life changes poised to descend upon the Harper household.

We knew last summer that there was a very real chance I might lose my banking job due to a merger (well, ok, it's a much more complicated story than that, but really, who's interested in knowing all the gory deatils of a couple-hundred-million-dollar loan fraud scheme at a highly-regarded local financial services company?). And so I began to prepare for that eventuality. I did some real soul searching. After Lily was born, I found I could no longer stomach corporate life. All of the pointless meetings, all of the personal drama interjected into the professional arena, all of the hard work that seemed only to benefit the company and not me. It all suddenly seemed so ridiculous and meaningless compared with the bright and beautiful new little life that waited for me at home. It tortured me to leave my baby everyday to work a job that was draining my soul. I decided that all that life energy being sucked away rightfully belonged to my family and me, not to a corporation. I decided, whether or not I lost my job, I would eventually change careers, and I wanted something that would give me the freedom to spend more time with Lily. I decided I to become trained as a medical transcriptionist.

And so it has finally come to pass; so many agonizing months later, I am simultaneously only weeks from completing a course in medical transcription and working my last day at the bank. Now that I have been handed my pink slip, it doesn’t seem so very bad after all. In fact, in so many ways things could not be better! With my shiny new diploma in hand, I will be qualified to seek gainful employment working from home as a medical transcriptionist. It won't be as glamorous as working at the Met, and it won't pay nearly as well as working at the bank. But, it will allow me to negotiate my schedule so that I have large portions of my days free to spend with Lily. And that makes my heart happy. So very, very happy.

Now, not only do I have the chance to be the wife, mother, and woman I long to be, there are, we’re beginning to realize, so many other benefits this new working arrangement will bring. Starting with perhaps most novel of the perks, I will now be able to wear my fuzzy pink slippers (or whatever else I want) to work. Yeeesssss! I can't wait to shove my business suits and pantyhose way into the back of the closet. And you certainly can’t beat the commute of my new job, all 20 seconds of it (longer if I stop to make a pot of tea). What's more, I can slip in loads of laundry here and there during the day, catch up on the mail or a little dusting during breaks, actually cook a real dinner on weeknights, and the list goes on! All the things I was unable to do working a traditional 40-hour week outside the home, all the things that I used to have to cram into every woefully too-short weekend, all of these will now be able to be accomplished without the stress and guilt that used to accompany them. There are other benefits, too. We will become quite the green, carbon-neutral household. Our driving will be reduced to almost nothing; I will no longer have to use the car to go to work, and Doug, who works less than a mile from home, frequently walks in nice weather. Furthermore, because we live in a small city with a vibrant downtown, nearly everything we need is within walking distance. There are restaurants, pubs, grocery stores, pharmacies, all manner of funky little artsy and thrift shops, coffee shops, bakeries, and a phenomenal farmers market. For Lily there is a lovely park with a brand new playground only a few blocks from home, an art museum, a natural history museum, a children's museum, and a public library, all with free programs for little people.

You know what? This is turning out so great, I should get laid off more often!