12 Reasons to go Back to Work after 12 Years

1. You get offered a near-perfect job. The hours fit, the work suits you, the commute is short, and you still get to sit around in your jammies for three weekdays and a weekend if you so choose (and you so choose). You've been working from home doing contracts for a couple of years, but this will get your foot in the office door once again.

2. The heating company is sending you polite reminders to pay your exorbitant oil bill, and any offers made by you to "work it out in trade" have resulted in the threat of sexual harrassment lawsuits.  Prudes.

3. Going somewhere where the furniture isn't covered in peanut butter stains* is a nice change of pace.

4. Being able to think clearly - and not just in between bouts of intense fighting/screaming/threatening/toy-launching - is a really neat trick that you look forward to.

5. Getting organized down to the minutest detail the night before you drive everyone to school and yourself to work brings out your inner OCD Virgo, and she tingles with glee at the thought. Lunches made, clothes laid out, house clean, bags packed-- oh, there we go, getting all excited again...

6. You just happen to work for the coolest boss lady on the planet, and you're not even exaggerating all that much, even though she reads your blog. (Reading your blog, incidentally, just ups her coolness level, anyway). You've known her for awhile, share a mutual love of caffeine and Doctor Who, and she gets what it's like to be a mom who's trying to balance a job, too. I have struck managerial gold, people. May this mine be bountiful.

7. The Boss Lady says you can use the space during off hours to practice with your Justin Bieber interpretive dance troop. (You did say that was okay, right, Nat? I'm pretty sure you also said you wanted to join)

8. After your first day of work, there's a knock on the door, and a flower shop delivery person hands you a big bouquet of these:

Thank you for being my cheerleader, Lil.
It means a lot! xo

9. After over a decade, you get a little giddy saying "I have to go to the office this morning." In fact, any excuse to say it is welcome, and your Facebook statuses are filled with those words to a sickening degree. Thankfully, everyone must sense your excitement, because they're being uber supportive. Thus, when you're CEO of Awesomecorp (I'm a working mom now, folks. It's all about ambition! AMBITION!!) you shall reward them all for their allegiance to your corporate ladder climbing campaign.

10. As a writer, you're going to enjoy coming up with interesting ways to present your administrative assistant tasks during Career Day at your child's school. It takes an enormous amount of talent to make "filing" and "proofreading" sound like "surgical rotation" and "space exploration," but I think I can do it. I look forward to exercising my imagination muscles like most other parents on the planet.

11. Because you finally had an excuse (like you needed an excuse) to buy one of these beautiful things to put in place of worship upon your kitchen counter:

My life is now complete.

12. Your husband hugs you this morning, hands you a coffee, and says "I just want to thank you for everything you do to keep this family running smoothly. You're amazing and beautiful.**" And that small little thing blossoms into a really big thing and makes you get all teary. Dammit. And you realize that all the work you do - both inside and outside the home - is incredibly important to the your little family. That feels so. very. good.

*The jury's still out on whether or not those stains are peanut butter or another brown, organic substance, but I will deny, deny, deny until it can be proven otherwise.

**Okay, maybe he didn't say the "beautiful" part, but that was assumed, even in my nasty pyjama pant getup. It's not a workday, okay? Cut me some slacks.