Dinners

An old college friend with three elementary-school aged children was recently widowed.  Her husband was in his early forties when he died – he had been dealing with cancer a long while, which is terrible in many ways, but also gave them a long timeline for death. With all of its many cruelties – the logistics of dealing with treatment and feeling bad, the pressure on the children, the burden on the healthy spouse, the anticipatory grieving – the long timeline also, mercifully, allowed them to get the family well situated in advance of his death.  He quit his job as a pastor in South Carolina, she (a SAHM for years) brushed up her resume and found a job within a few miles of her parents in Indiana, and they moved the children and got them well settled into life there.  They switched roles – he became a SAHD, and they made the best of things for a while, before the cancer took his life just a few months ago.  (If you’d like, you can follow her here.  She herself was also a pastor – they met in seminary – and she is now converting to Catholicism.  It’s a long story but she is telling it beautifully.  Even for the atheist and agnostic, her exploration has something to offer, I humbly submit.)

Elise wrote a blog post recently that resonated with me: Pattern, Presence, and Passing it on.  In it, she describes how inserting some rigid rules into her household, her “little family boat” with just one adult left in it, has left her more free in many ways.  I’ve thought about it a long while since reading it.  And for various reasons, I’m going to take a leaf out of her book and give it a try.

I have always abhorred rigid rules.  I chafe against the bonds of scheduling and routine.  I was attracted to the field of law in part because, from what I’d read, every day is different.  (And it is, if you land in the right place – certain bigger firms have you at your desk 16 hours a day reading documents, but I had the luck at both firms to be given myriad responsibilities immediately, meaning one day I’m writing a brief all day and the next, I’m driving to a client’s site to interview witnesses, and the third day, I’m in the courtroom half the day and answering emails the latter half, and then the fourth, I’m in mediation, and the fifth, I’m in depositions.  That has literally been a week in my life, at least once. That aspect of this job suits me – it’s challenging, it’s varied, its interesting.)

But I’m going to try some rigid rules.  This may not work – what’s good for the goose isn’t always good for the gander.  But I’m willing to give it a try.  Though I am not a single mother, I am part of a pair of full time professional working spouses/parents, with no local family to help ease the pressure.  And it’s very hard to do anything well, when you’re in that situation.  All things suffer.

We aren’t perfectionists around here, by any stretch.  The kids watch a lot of tv.  We order pizza on the reg.  Often, we are all fishing wrinkled (but clean!) clothes out of a laundry hamper because I managed to wash them, but not fold and put them away.  I go to about 10% of the kid events at school, and miss about 50% of the “bring a bear to school today!” or “wear purple today for our purple party!” school assignments.  They’ve been tardy 10 times (less than 5 minutes each time, but still . . .)  As for work, though I get my work done, I often look less professional than I’d like (read: hair not dried, clothes wrinkled, jacket with stains).  I have written a brief with a fevered kid in my arms more times than I can count.  Point being, I’m not aiming for a blue ribbon here – just a finishers medal.

Nevertheless, when I have so much incoming information to process, the constant barrage of newsletters and emails and stuff – when I’ve got so many obligations, which often directly compete with one another – when I have a spouse in the same boat . . . something (more) has gotta give.  I feel like I’ve let most things go, but more needs to go.

So, my one domestic chore that I actually like is what’s going to go.  And that’s my meal planning.  On the one hand, this ticks me off – I am forever giving up things I enjoy to make room for obligations I don’t enjoy, and while I suppose that is the definition of “adult,” I feel we’re taking it to the extreme in this latter gilded age of America – we all work way more hours for way less money.  On the other hand, it is what it is.  I’m already doing the bare minimum where laundry is concerned.  The kids are in zero extra curriculars right now.  All we do is work and church, and we even skip church on occasion to ease the pressure.  But I’m still losing my mind with carrying all of this, even with a living partner carrying it with me.

I canceled Blue Apron, which we barely got anymore anyway given the cost, and we’re doing the weekly same-easy-menu thing.  Mondays are spaghetti and meatballs.  Tuesdays are sandwiches (grilled cheese or PB & J) and canned soup.  Wednesdays are frozen chicken nuggets and frozen veg.  Thursdays are mac and cheese and frozen veg.  Fridays are Mexican – something in a tortilla.  This takes from me a thing I love (cooking), and also could possibly make the children fat. But it also gives me time and brain space, and probably won’t make the children fat, especially if we do it just a brief while.  It’s also, depressingly, much cheaper to buy pre-made crap food.  So it gives us more money, too.  The Prof and I can either eat what they have, or range around in the fridge for something else – easier to do when you’re taking care of just yourself, and not making a meal that feeds five.

I also bought a ton of Lean Cuisines, which are OK I guess but I never loved.  Now I don’t have to make my lunch every day, just grab a frozen meal and go.  Yay?  You can tell how grudgingly I go this route.  Food is such a pleasure, a daily pleasure both to consume and create.  Even the planning I love – picking through pinterest, thinking about what’s in season. I’m chafing at the bonds already, and I just put the darn things on.  But now, I just have one grocery list, and it’s the same every week.  No more thinking, planning, selecting ingredients, writing up a list, pre-making foods on the weekends.  We’ll give it a try, and see if the extra time I gain makes me a less heinous and more resilient person.  Something’s gotta give.  We’ll try this.  Maybe it doesn’t work, and I miss it too much.  Maybe it does, and I feel way less out of control all the time.

As for chores, the boys are pretty helpful.  They clean their room, clear and set the table.  I’m teaching Jack laundry.  Perhaps a poster will help.  A “do all this before you get to watch tv” kind of thing.  There will be whining and griping, but by God there may also be more time for rest for the parents.  Which, right now, is the main thing.

We’ll see how the pattern thing goes.  I think so much and so deeply and under so much pressure for my job, constantly – I’ve simply got to give my brain a rest when not at work.  I hate that all of my passion and energy and brain space is being siphoned off into one place . . . the law is a greedy mistress, as they say.  But this is but a season in life, and it shall pass.  Let’s see if we can make it a more pleasant one.