Returning to Work After Long Leave: The Sentence You Lost
“Returning to Work After Long Leave: The Sentence You Lost” - Estelle O'Callaghan
How do you answer "so what do you do?" when the answer you used to give no longer fits? For many mid-career women returning to work after long leave, whether that followed maternity leave, carer's leave, illness, redundancy or a messy divorce, it's the question that catches. When the sentence goes, confidence usually goes with it, and it's easy to read that loss as proof you've fallen behind.
In my experience, the women who feel this most are rarely short of capability. What they're short of is a way to describe themselves that fits who they are now. The skills are still there, and the work is bringing them back to the surface where you and other people can see them.
WHAT IT COSTS WHEN THE SENTENCE GOES
Losing a one-line answer can look like a small thing, but it tends to cost you in three ways:
You undersell yourself where it matters. A hesitant or overlong answer invites the other person to fill the gap with their own assumptions, and those assumptions are rarely generous.
You spend energy performing "fine". Being fine in the meeting, fine on the video call and fine when someone asks how you're settling in takes real effort, and it often tires you more than the work itself.
You try to fix it on your own. Without anyone to test your thinking against, the story that you're behind has nothing to push back on, so it tends to grow.
WHEN YOU'RE RETURNING AFTER ILLNESS OR MAJOR SURGERY
For women returning after illness or major surgery, including cancer treatment, the loss runs deeper than work. Your energy may be different, your body may be different, and the person who did this job at the old pace can feel like someone else. Grief is an accurate word for that, and it's worth naming plainly, because grief doesn't respond to a productivity system or a set of calendar tips. Once it's named, you can make practical decisions from where you are now, rather than from the pace you kept before you left.
WHY ONE ACCURATE SENTENCE HELPS
A clear sentence about your value does two jobs. It gives other people an accurate picture of what you bring now, and it gives you something steady to come back to when the old story starts up again. One accurate sentence is enough to begin, as long as you say it out loud and then say it again somewhere it counts.
WHERE TO START THIS WEEK
Write down the answer you're giving now. The next time someone asks "so what do you do?", note what you said, word for word, as soon as you can. If it took three sentences, an apology or a mention of how long you've been away, you've found your starting point.
Draft one sentence that fits who you are now. Describe what you're good at and what you're here to do, in words you'd be comfortable saying to a colleague. For example, a sentence that starts with the problem you help solve is often easier to say out loud than one that starts with a job title.
Test it in a low-stakes room. Say the sentence to someone whose opinion you trust, then ask them what they heard. Change anything that doesn't sound like you, and then say it again in a room where it counts.
Choose one place to stop performing "fine". Pick one person or one setting where you can give an honest answer to "how are you settling in?" Keeping up appearances everywhere is tiring, and one honest conversation makes the rest easier to carry.
WHY THE LIBRARY IS A ROOM AS WELL AS A LIBRARY OF RESOURCES
You can read everything written about returning to work and still believe, privately, that your situation is the exception. That belief tends to survive information, but it rarely survives other women. It's very hard to hold a distorted story about yourself in a room full of people who can see you clearly. That's why the Ghanvey Digital Library is "a room as well as a library of resources".
Each month there's a live session and an Implementation Lab, where members work on the same questions together, alongside scripts, templates and challenges to use between sessions. The room is made up of mid-career women inside organisations who are doing this work in real time, so nobody has to start their story from the beginning.
Remember, rebuilding your sentence isn't about pretending the time away didn't change you; it's about describing who you are now clearly enough that other people, and you, can recognise it. The version of you who returns may work at a different pace or care about different things, and that's information worth including rather than hiding. When the sentence fits, the question that used to catch becomes a chance to show people what you bring.
If you're returning to work after long leave and "so what do you do?" still catches, the Ghanvey Digital Library gives you a room of mid-career women to build and test that sentence with, plus a live session and an Implementation Lab each month. October's theme is "Not Behind", and the members-only live session is on Friday 2 October at 10:30 am. It's $49 a month, with no lock-in contracts.
Join the Ghanvvey Digital Library
Warm Regards
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