Kassie's Toddler Years: Challenges of Returning to Work

So. I have been back at work for three weeks. And overall, I feel really positive about the experience. Unlike the last time I attempted to return to work after medical leave, I feel like I can handle coming back. I feel really optimistic about continuing to "ramp up" and feel that I am getting stronger, more acclimated and more productive each day.

That is not to say that my body is altogether happy about me returning. I am very, very tired a great deal of the time. My hands and wrists hate all the typing, my eyes and migraine-prone noggin do NOT like looking at a computer screen all day and my body wishes it had more time to gently stretch than it does.

But the truly challenging part about going back to work has been surprising. It has been the emotional component of returning. I spent my five months of medical leave very, very quietly. I didn't talk to many people because I was concentrated on healing. And I avoided stressful interactions because stress exacerbates flares. But when you return to work, you have to interact with others. You have to embrace stressful situations and constructive criticism.

Normally, this isn't a problem for me. I genuinely enjoy my co-workers, believe constructive criticism is necessary for growth and believe that a certain amount of challenge-related stress tends to keep work interesting. But I am uncharacteristically bristling at many of the interactions I am compelled to have on a daily basis right now. I am not sure if it is simply that I have been quiet for so long that I am overly sensitive and fearful of judgment/rejection or if something else is going on. But I am having a rough time letting things flow through me in the ways they normally would.

For example, my boss decided to treat my return (given the fact that I was gone for five months and five months is a LONG time in our business) basically as a "fresh start." And in many ways, that has been really helpful. A great deal of our systems have changed and my Lupus brain is just straight-up slower than it once was. But in other ways, it has made me want to cry. Regularly. And a LOT. I have been at my company for seven years. I initially trained the majority of my team in writing and research skills when they first arrived. And I am now being asked to run literally every word I write by others for critique. My co-workers are lovely and are just doing their jobs. But being treated like I have absolutely no idea what I am doing after seven years of writing this kind of content is demoralizing. And frankly, it makes me want to construct a fort in my living room and never come out of it again.

I told Mark today that I have said to myself "Stop acting like a toddler and just do it" so many times in the past few weeks, I have lost count. Because I am drained. I feel undervalued, micromanaged and drained. Which perhaps isn't fair... after all, I am the one who had to leave for five months and who is taking FOREVER to get a good rhythm going. Mark insists that I need to avoid being so hard on myself. But it is hard not to be hard on myself when I am sitting around on the verge of tears all the damn time because I feel like I am being treated like a child and am responding to the situation by ACTING like a child.

If I felt like I could get out of this loop, it wouldn't be a problem. But no matter how often I tell myself not to take my temporary situation personally, my childish reactions to it just rear their ugly heads ten minutes later.

I apologize for the fact that this is not an uplifting post. I feel it is important to remain honest at all times and that is what I am trying to do... even if the most honest version of my life right now makes me look like a brat.

Samantha and the String Bikini

If you know me personally or follow this blog regularly, you are aware that my 15-year-old daughter Samantha is the absolute best thing about my life. She is not only the sweetest spirit I have ever had the privilege of encountering, she is also one of the funniest people I know, smart as a whip, empathetic and engaged, lovely inside and out, grounded and loving. But, I am a human being. And as a result, there are moments when my daughter's choices test my patience. And even though I want a Jelly Bean terribly, sometimes her choices make me question (just for a moment) whether I want to go through the challenges of parenting again, given that I am far older and less healthy than I was when I had Samantha.

Example... recently Samantha came home from the mall having purchased a bikini. I have no inherent problem with bikinis. But this bikini was fushia and was a string bikini. She may as well have taped a sign to her forehead that screamed "Ogle my body, please!" Now, I am a very vocal feminist and it goes without saying that I do not believe that the way one dresses gives anyone a right to treat that person in a degrading manner. But there is something to be said for being classy, self-respecting and reasonably modest in one's dressing choices... especially before one has reached the age of majority. If she chooses to bare all when she is older, I will probably feel like I have failed a little bit, but it will ultimately be her right. However, I have no interest in sanctioning a string bikini for a 15-year-old... and she was not happy about it.

It is funny... she is normally so grounded that these kinds of situations shock the hell out of me. As we discussed why she would not be wearing this bikini outside the women's locker room at the gym (we hot tub like it is a sport because the hot water really helps my leg pain), I kept thinking to myself "Why the hell am I having to explain this to her? Doesn't everything I have taught her to this point clearly illustrate why I am not cool with her wearing virtually nothing in public?" But no matter how smart, sweet and grounded she is, she is also a human being. She is going to test her limits and reach independent conclusions that drive me nuts sometimes. It is the way things are supposed to be as kids grow... but that doesn't make these mother-daughter challenges straightforward or easy.

I never second-guess myself more than when my sweet, smart, grounded daughter finds me or an argument of mine somehow lacking. Most of the time, when I go over my positions in "post game" I feel that I am standing on a solid foundation. However, other times I need to re-evaluate and either change course or apologize for articulating a position that was under-informed or stated from a place of little more than knee-jerk emotion. As my child gets older and smarter (if not always wiser) assuring myself that I "know what I am doing" gets more challenging.

I fully, fully understand why new parents or parents of young kids sometimes feel like they have been thrown into the deep end of the pool. However, Samantha's baby/toddler/little kid years were almost always fairly straightforward for me. She was a happy kiddo and was content to follow my lead... and I usually felt solid in the direction I was leading her, even if I didn't always feel solid in the direction I was leading myself. But now that she is getting closer to adulthood, I feel myself questioning my approach and my methods more and more often.

I really look forward to (God willing) being able to discuss baby things and little kid things with you all as the Jelly Bean grows older. I was the first of my friends to have a little one, so I never had anyone to talk to about those things. And with the Jelly Bean, that will not be the case. However, I am also the first of my friends to have a teenager. And once again, I find myself without anyone to talk to about raising a person going through that phase of life. Example... "So, Samantha came home the other day having purchased a string bikini..."

Holy Crap: Going Back to Work

So, I didn't end up losing my job. Even though my FMLA leave has been used up for the year for some time now, my employer ultimately did not decide to back fill my job while I was on medical leave. I was hoping that seven years of company loyalty would mean something, and I think it probably did. I am incredibly grateful to have retained my position and I am beyond excited to get my health insurance back. There is nothing that makes me want to hide from the big, scary world like having a gap in my health insurance.

And yet, despite my profound gratitude for retaining my job, I am about as nervous as one can get about returning to work this Monday. My rheumatologist has cleared me, but neither she nor I am sure that work is something I can truly handle anymore. Going from five months sick leave to full time employment is a HUGE jump. Although I am much better than I was when I initiated this latest leave, my health is still really precarious and I am anxious about it all falling apart again like it did the last time I tried to return to work. The thought of undoing all these months of recovery is frankly, very, very scary.

To add a level of complexity to the situation, my body is rejecting the stress I am experiencing at the thought of returning to work. A few hours after having a conversation with my new bosses about returning, my hands swelled up so painfully that I couldn't move them and I broke out in hives all over my body.

Soooooo... it seems that having a positive and optimistic outlook on things is not only beneficial right now, but a critical necessity. My family needs my income and I need my health insurance back, so I am returning to work without any real certainty that I can handle it. But it must be done, so I need to be as positive as possible in order to guard against stress-related inflammation and flares. Basically, being positive and at peace is becoming my new job title as I return to my old one.

Thank God that the Olympics are on right now. There is absolutely nothing like watching disciplined, dedicated and hard working individuals show up for a profound crossroads in their lives to inspire me to show up for mine. If you haven't taken a minute to watch the "Salute!" video I posted on my Facebook wall on Thursday, take some time to do it now. It will almost certainly inspire you to show up for whatever is challenging you right now in your life too.

My Partner in Time

I last posted one month ago today. The reason for the hiatus? Well, that is a bit of a story.

Over the past several years, Mark has become an incredibly private person. Although he is very friendly, funny and easy-going at work and with more casual friends, he really only opens up emotionally to family and very close friends. He almost never checks his Facebook account and would rather eat poisonous mushrooms than open himself up in a blog. And yet... it really never occurred to me that he would hate if I opened up about our personal lives in my blog. Yep. Me. Relatively perceptive and absurdly empathetic me. Never really occurred to me. Yep...

Late on the Fourth of July, Mark casually mentioned that he HATES that I write about Project Jellybean in a public forum. And I swear, my jaw hit the floor. I know that he worries that I will be hurt by negative reactions to my writing. And I know that he took it even harder than I did when a family member recently condemned me as a person for writing three sentences about a single night of my adolescence. But he has never once even hinted that it bothers him that I write about Project Jellybean.

I think the reason why it took so long for this information to come to light is that Mark understands a great deal about why I write my blog. He understands my desire to connect to others, to process my experience, to keep interested loved ones "in the know" about what is going on. He also understands that I write for other reasons that he doesn't personally identify with, but he supports me and what is important to me.

He hasn't asked me to stop writing about Project Jellybean, and after a month of thinking about the entire situation, I have decided that I am not going to stop writing about it. Although he doesn't like me sharing our personal business with the world, I genuinely believe that he values what this process does for me more than he does his privacy in this regard.

I must admit, this situation has caused me to spend a great deal of time thinking about how all of this is affecting him. Although Lupus is my personal challenge to weather, it does not solely affect me. It affects Mark, Samantha, our closest friends, my work relationships and a host of others. Project Jellybean obviously affects him tremendously... it is not easy having an incredibly specific timetable for one of life's most significant events imposed upon you.

I have started to quietly refer to Mark as my "partner in time." Project Jellybean is a very time sensitive issue... and it is affecting both of our lives in dramatic ways. I am endlessly grateful that Mark respects my need to write about this process, even if doing so makes him incredibly uncomfortable. One of our little family's favorite sayings is "Love is a verb, first and foremost." Supporting my blog despite his personal discomfort is a pretty outstanding use of said verb.