Tonight was my second night of Not-Working.  

--When do you stop wondering what's going on there without you?

--How long does it take before the endless list of Things That You Aren't Doing At Work comes off repeat in your head?

--Who is sitting at my desk?  Doing my work?  Maybe doing it...better.

--What did my boss think when she realized I REALLY wasn't coming back? 

--Why does it matter if I'm happy being home?

These are the things I can't post on my Facebook Wall.  Two of the girls from work read that...and I can't bring myself to try to explain to them why I left earlier than I had planned.  I'm not even sure I totally understand myself.

I can't discuss these questions with the Manlings or the Hubby.  Why?  Because they don't quite understand when I say things like, "I loved my job" or "my boss is going to hate me"--they wonder why it matters.  I have them to take care of and love and homeschool and spend the rest of my life with.  It was just a job.  Right?

Sure.  It WAS just a job.  But it was a job I was good at.  It was a job I had for nine and a half years...and I turned my back on a good paycheck and great hours and work I was excellent at...to be with them. 

Only here, in my blog, can I try to work through the morass of feelings and mixed emotions that I have about being a SAHM as opposed to a working medical secretary.  Try to somehow find some middle ground in my head about Who I am now and Where I am not anymore.  Maybe make some sense out of the jumbled craziness that has been these last three months.

Why did I leave Now...rather than in two weeks as was the Original Plan? 

I told myself it was because I was just fed up with the idiocy of the Docs trying to find competent help.  But if I'm being honest (and I need to be, brutally, messily, completely transparently Honest), then the real reason I left Now rather than Then, is because I just couldn't train someone to replace me.  

Whatever my boss thinks of me now, the brutal truth is that deep down, this was not a decision I made lightly.  I didn't wake up one morning and decide that I hated my job and didn't want to be there anymore.  It took nearly six months of back-and-forth with the Hubby before we finally decided together that it really was time for me to stay home.  It took another four weeks before I mustered up the courage to actually tell my boss I was quitting.  I gave her six weeks' notice...and then volunteered to stay on another three months when another Front Desk girl quit that same week.  Dragging my feet to leave??  I'd say just a bit.  

Then they actually hired someone to do my myriad assortment of jobs...and I suddenly had to face the realization that The End was finally in sight.  

Part of me was ecstatic!!  I was looking at the end of not being home with my boys, and my house would finally get the attention it needed so desperately.  What I posted this morning about an Adrenaline Surge for Housekeeping was an understatement.  I was PSYCHED!!  The house would be clean and tidy; the floors would be swept; the meals would be planned and made; the budget would be controlled....

....and someone else would sit in My Office...at My Desk...using My Computer...doing My Work.

Change is hard.  Even when it's welcome and long overdue.  

I just walked away from a job I had been in for almost a decade...a job I loved....to stay home with the ones I love....and I can't tell you if the tears are of loss...or happiness.  I made the right choice.

But it wasn't easy.