Maternity leave is a strange, transitory time

The first time round, it was in winter and full of big excitement and little knowledge of what was to come.

As I approach my second maternity leave (in 3 weeks' time), it feels like I've never left the transitional space that I found myself in last time. I will have returned to work for a total of 9 months in between leaves and for 3 days a week. The one-foot-in, one-foot-out existence has encompassed some of the best parts of both spheres of living, but has also come with plenty of unexpectedness.

So, will writing anything down help to understand the complexity of early motherhood, where life is on pause but also somehow accelerating? A previous life path has stalled quite abruptly, but more options have opened up ahead. The fear/dread/excitement that whirl around in my brain at bedtime at the possibilities of change. Excitement that I can somehow 'get it right' and balance my life out better than before, along with the dread that I will end up drifting along the path of the least resistance as I, by default, put others' immediate needs before my own longer-term ones.

This existential angst is certainly not an ever-present feeling nor the dominant one of motherhood. I go to bed full of love and wonder at my daughter - her capacity for joy, her ability to create games that hook me in, and her spontaneous sillyness, all make spending time with her feel magical. Yet, it is all the rapid changes that, at times, have made me feel an almost Blanche DuBois-esque need to "keep hold of myself". To be clear, I feel sympathy with this sentiment specifically, not with the character more broadly.

To documenting complex thoughts! To living an examined life! To motherhood!