Undone

I hear this a lot.  Don’t you WANT to stay at home with your kids?

I will be upfront: yes. That’s the short answer.

The VERY long answer is this:

I have two kids and a house to pay for, in addition to the convenience of having money… I think we’re a bit addicted to it. I love the company I work for. I do. The people I work with are amazing, and great people. I have a good boss, and a company that cares about me as a person and wants to continue my development. Twenty-two year old Meryl would have been SO enthused. This was all I wanted. I wanted to be a trainer, and to work and be vital to the workings of a company.

it’s just one of those “be careful what you wish for” i guess. I feel stressed. Like a million knots have been tied in my stomach. It hurts! I’m getting older (everyone does, and it’s not so cool now as it was when I was 11) and each year I find I’m getting less sleep. I wish i was getting more, but it’s always less, and the wild swinging schedules are killing me. But I will keep doing them, because I”m a woman of my word. I said I would, and honestly, I don’t think I could go back (or maybe I would?)

When my former Boss asks me “How are you liking working for your new boss?” and wants my honest opinion, I give it to him. I feel like a house divided, and quite frankly I’m not standing up to that very well. I am tired, A LOT. I’m trying to adapt, and it takes a lot of work. It’s just the adjustment period. I’m just … I’m trying. All the while it keeps ringing back….

Don’t you want to stay at home?

Yes. I do. and it always turns out to be a “someday” or a “soon” and even “I should be able to {insert future date}” I wouldn’t mind working at some menial job (grocery and retail, whatever) part time. I need something lower stress. I need something healthier. It’s almost 6 years past when I wanted to stop working.

I keep going. I am beginning to think it’ll never stop.

Derringer Meryl [I’m a sad face] Out

WARNING: HORRIBLY OFFENSIVE POST AHEAD:

You know what needs to go? People saying that mom’s just don’t get a day off from being moms. I call BULLSHIT (sorry for the swearing mom) I will full on agree that my mom has been pluggin’ at being a mom (and has worn other hats at the same time too) for nigh on 30 odd years. She gets tired, and i won’t lie and say she’s never asked for help or anything, but everyone deserves a hand…. and that’s what I’m saying. It’s bullshit that we say things like “that’s just how it is being a mom” NO. No it’s not. That’s how we let it be being a mom. It’s like women (myself included) enjoy being some sort of martyr or what not to the cause of perfect motherhood. BS!! *throws something against the wall* I am Meryl and I am here to stand proud and say it loud that I AM NOT PERFECT, and I like it that way. I don’t always make a home made dinner from oats that I rolled by hand that morning while watching the sunrise, or some such BS. If you can do that, great. FABULOUS. If you love doing that, EVEN MORE POWER TO YOU. But don’t get up in my face waving on and on about “How great” it is what you’re doing. It floats your boat. GOODY For you. It’s like going in front of a person who can’t walk, and tap dancing while singing a song about how fabulous your legs are. JERK. I am physically incapable of doing EVERYTHING right. It’s just not possible. (plugs her ears while someone reads something out of a conference talk or whatever) Yeah, that’s great. But until Elder whats his bucket is going to get down in the trenches and help me muck out my house, I think he can stuff it too.

You know what I do every day? I wake up, far too early for how late I stay up cleaning, go to work. I work for 8 hours with customers who can’t speak English and are upset that I don’t speak… Macedonian or whatever, and I explain to them SOMEONE else’s rules and regulations. It’s not my company. Not that I particularly disagree with anything, but in any case– NOT MY BUSINESS, I tell it like it is, I get them gone, I go on to the next person who wants me to speak Latvian. NO. I don’t. Whatever. I put up with people twisting my words, or just not understanding– pretty much all day, between that I get to deal with some fun co-workers, and not so fun co-workers. Overall, I hear the following in the back of my head “Wonder what the kids are doing? I bet the spilled something on the carpet. What fresh hell awaits you at home? Did they brush their teeth this morning? I bet they didn’t. Don’t forget to reschedule Kate’s appointment. You need to pay the electricity bill. Also you need to do two loads of laundry and mow the lawn on Saturday. I hope it doesn’t rain. I should call Scott. Maybe not, he’s probably sleeping. I should let him sleep. Poor guy doesn’t sleep enough. I hope he’s ok. Maybe I should call and make sure he’s not having a low. I should get him into a doctor already. Did I take my pills today? I can’t remember. What day is it again? Oh I owe so in so some money. I should make sure to pay them back when I see them next. When is our next dentists appointment. I should check out a roofer for our house. I can call them on my break, and set up appointments. I need to look into Loans, do we have enough equity in our house for an equity loan. I don’t think so…..” You get the Idea. that is about an hour of what plays through my head between short conversations with co-workers. I am strategizing and scheduling. I am balancing. ALWAYS. Then I come home, Something has been messed up. INEVITABLY. Not like a little mess. The days where there is a little mess, I’m ok. Whatever. Big messes, like ice cream spread around the kitchen,  laundry party thrown (IE, all clean and dirty laundry intermixed. whee) all the toys taken out, scattered, nail polish/crayon/sharpie on the walls, cake flour dusted through the house, missing children, inexplicable water/soda/juice messes, chalk rubbed into carpet, etc. I’ll admit that all of these don’t happen on one day, but usually at least one a day.

That being said, at least once a month, I Lose it. I don’t mean like stuff gets forgotten, bills go unpaid. But that inner dialogue usually spills into something more like “Why am I doing all of this? Didn’t I ask for some help? why didn’t it get done…” and then it escalates into angry Mommy, and usually someone gets screamed at, over something that would usually simply try my patience. I try to refrain from exploding. I really do. I can hear Sukie saying “You should just let it out when you feel angry, don’t bottle. Your family is full of bottlers” it’s true. We bottle. WE bottle well. Now if we only did it for something useful, Like peaches. Oh well. I should let my anger out, but typically, it tends to be so fleeting that it passes in the moment and I don’t realize that I’ve pushed it down and just decided to conquer the task on my own. I feel, quite frankly, a little bit like Daria’s high school History teacher meets the little red hen.

Seriously, this guy needs to relax. So do I. So when people take and say “oh mom’s don’t get a day off” all I can think is “A vein in my forehead just exploded!” and my face, I imagine, looks a little like this guy’s. Cause If I never get a day where I am not the person making things go, and getting this person to that place, and scheduling appointments and balancing house work and naggy customers, and one really OBNOXIOUS co-worker who doesn’t help out. I might go nuts. I seriously might have a break down. People think I”m over dramatic, but I’m not trying to be. I am trying to do the most that I can without A) looking like a total slacker and B) not going mental. I did work for the post office people. I”m not saying I’m down with guns and what not. Cause, honestly I’d probably shoot myself in the foot and it’d be so funny and… whatever, but I’m saying that I visualize every day, tackling some upper member of management’s back and just bashing their head against the ground.

I realized, ever since I started working, every single day of my life has been worse than the day before it. So that means that every single day that you see me, that's on the worst day of my life.

I also grasp that this is one of the very violent images that springs to mind, but I never act on. Thank God. I just… I don’t think people realize how much I’m doing. Mostly from my ADD. I am consistently doing more than it appears that I am doing. I am never, even while surfing online, doing nothing.
Maybe this is just dawning on me. Maybe this is how everyone is. If that’s the case, how is everyone NOT angry all the time? Oh…. maybe all the women (who aren’t deeply in love with the 1950’s and that mindset) are? Listen, I don’t mind the 1950’s, I’d like to clean house and have dinner ready for my husband when he gets home too. Except he gets home at weird hours… Whatever. I’d like to wear a puffy house dress and vaccuum with pearls on and accidentally drug my children with benedryl so that I can relax and watch some soaps, or something like that. The truth is, I squeeze every last drop of what I can do out of most days. (at least when I’m not super exhausted, haha) I stay up late doing chores I can’t do when the kids are awake. I never see my husband, because he’s at work when I’m at home and I’m at home when he’s at work. Let’s not kid ourselves. We all wish our lives were different. We all would love to win the lottery, for whatever reason.  Even the people who are most satisfied with their lives are wishing for something just a bit more. Does that make us greedy or ambitious? Probably a little of both. All I know is I could use a vacation. A long one. Preferably by myself. Hell. I’d like 10 minutes alone in the bathroom with no one pounding on the door asking what I’m doing. I’m waving the white flag, life. Can’t we all just get along?

Derringer Meryl [What about today? Is today the worst day of your life?] Out