working stiff

I am typing this on my first lunch hour in over a year. It's rather disconcertingly comfortable. I was able to leave this morning - albeit in a bit of a rush - with little fanfare [the less the better, I figured] - and hopped the train as though it was my daily routine.

My badge readily operated the doors and elevators, my old locker was empty and waiting for me and, horror of horrors, I remembered my old computer password before the system locked me out for too many failed attempts.

I had 2081 email messages waiting for me. Generic, useless and woefully outdated email messages, each of which had been replied to by an equally generic and apparently useless out-of-office message. Despite all the little updates and alterations that have gone on, so little has really changed.

Except for me.

I'm a little hesitant to simply take over where I left off. I haven't moved my piles of papers back into what used to be My Desk. I haven't laid claim to a calculator, nor have I answered the phones yet. I haven't looked for my personalized lab coats and am anxious about staking a claim in the lunchroom fridge. I am shadowing the girl who replaced me during my maternity leave.

For all that it feels like I never left, it is painfully obvious, to me at least, that I did. As it is, by now, apparent to the Magpie that I have left her.

I have called home once, just now on my break, and all is well with Mr.Q and my baby. We'll see what she thinks of me when my slightly surreal day of Back to Work: The Job You Know You Did, But Don't Remember is over and I make my way back home to her.