Monday, September 19, 2011

The First Day Back

Friday, I went back to work. It's crazy to think that I ended up taking 6 months off. In fact, 6 months seems positively decadent to me, considering that I only took 6 weeks off with Lisel.

As you can probably imagine, there is a big difference between hitting the road with a child who is almost sitting on her own, and venturing forth across the country with an infant who still hasn't mastered the art of head control.

We played the Austin City Limits Festival, which was awesome for so many reasons. I mean, first off, playing ACL is always rad because, well, it's ACL. Asleep at the Wheel has been lucky enough to play every one of the Festival's 10 years, and we always play one of the first slots, which means we get to see the sweet pre-festivalness of Zilker Park right before the gates open.








And Mindy, Michelle and I got to be super dorky before the show.




I can always tell my kids I hung with Cold Play( 's road cases).

We were also supremely lucky that my first day back was a local gig. We avoided a long drive, were able to drop the kids with my folks and had an overall no-hassle type situation.

It felt good to be back on stage. Very good. I didn't talk about this much (read, at all) but it wasn't always clear that I would be coming back to work. I mean, I always planned on it, but anyone who has kids, or who lives life for that matter knows the deal with best laid plans.

First we had meet Willow. We were lucky that she was healthy, and that she seems to have a temperament that is a good fit for the road. But it could have easily gone a millions different ways.

Then I had to meet the new, two kid Elizabeth. I got hit pretty hard by the mom bomb with Lisel. I had a baby and suddenly all these things got switched on and I was like this whole different mother me. I had no idea what would happen after Willow arrived. What if I looked in the mirror and decided that I didn't want to go back to work? I wouldn't be the first woman who had had her mind changed by mother nature.

But after 5 months with Willow and the new me, I was certain that I wanted to get back to work. Because as much as I love parks and pools and playdates and cooking in my kitchen and sleeping in my bed -- well, I really do love playing music and going on adventures. I really do dig the road.

Besides, this was the view from my first day back.





Who wouldn't dig that.


3 comments:

BillJ said...

Glad you're back, too. We missed you in the past two times (Divide and Ruidoso) we saw "The Wheel", my favorite band of all time!

EMQ said...

ThankS Bill! My baby schedule has often interfered with Riudoso trips. I'm glad to be back.

Kelsey said...

Congrats on getting back to it!! I too could only make the decision to go back to work after I had done the SAHM thing. You continue to a badass no matter what :)