Bound

CM recently wrote a post that resonated with me (and a lot of other people, judging by the comments).   Our “funk cycles” are in sync – I, too, am feeling somewhat trapped by my small children right now.  The other day walking back from the bus stop with Liam and the dog, I had a brief internal struggle with whether to go up the front steps or around through the garage – if I go through the garage, I can drop off the dog’s poop in the trash can on the way, but then Liam will get into all of the toys and bikes in there and I’ll have to chase him down to get him into the house and pick all that stuff back up.  If I go up the steps, Liam will just come straight in the house but then I’ll have to leave the dog’s poop on the porch to throw away later and I’ll have to bend over to pick it up (not so easy these days), and if I forget and it rains the bag might burst and then I’ll have to clean up that mess somehow sometime.

Anyway, that internal struggle kind of ticked me off.  Like, god, these little tyrants run every single aspect of my life, I have been TRAINED by these children, constrained by them, I never just simply do something, I think about it and how their little tyrannical reactions are going to negatively impact the course of my behavior and try to pick the path of least resistance.  This is especially challenging right now, as I am too pregnant to bend over with any kind of comfort, constantly tired and hearburn-ish, and work has blown up so that meeting work demands pretty much drains me of all energy.  Also, the husband is basically gone for two weeks straight on necessary but closely-timed out-of-town trips, leaving me single momming it.  He’s home for twenty four hours here, thirty hours there, and whenever he’s home he dashes around doing dishes and laundry and mowing the lawn and grocery-shopping and basically shoring things up before he has to go again, which is lovely and helpful.  But I want him to just LIVE HERE, all the time live here, not just because he’s helpful but because I miss him.  Whenever he’s around I just talk his poor ear off, I’m all: “the other day at work Suzy said to John this CRAZY thing, you’ll never believe,” and “can you IMAGINE that political nonsense, I think XYZ about all of this,” or “The other day Jack came home from school and he just ________ and I was like ________.”  Several days of chatter all crammed into a few hours.  Marriage in the margins.

My chafing at the bounds of small-child-minding is not helped by the fact that I work with a bunch of twenty five year olds.  All the associates at our office went straight through to law school, and so most of them are in their mid twenties, aren’t married, and those that are do not have children.  Yesterday we were talking about our upcoming weekends, and one of them is going to golf nine holes with her husband since the weather looks great, then head to a pub for a nice lunch – another is going to drive up to New Orleans with her boyfriend to see a gospel concert – another is planning a frolic in the botanical gardens, maybe a picnic, and then maybe head over to NOLA to see the WWII Museum and have a fancy dinner in the French Quarter.  And I couldn’t help it – I didn’t say anything but I thought bitterly about how my Saturday would consist of me dragging both boys by myself to the grocery store, which we’d have to do first thing so we can get it out of the way before Liam has to nap all afternoon, and then while he naps I would do the boys’ laundry because Jack’s uniforms must be washed, and then when they wake up I’d have to make some sort of dinner that they will probably hate and refuse to eat, and then I’d have to run a bath and bend over to try to wash their wriggling bodies, lever those bodies into pajamas, try to make them sit down and not jump on the bed while I read a book, and then flop exhausted onto the couch and fall asleep at 8:15 once they’re finally down.  With dishes still in the sink and waiting for me to do them when I can get around to it.

I think sometimes about what it was like, way back when – to know that when I go home from work I could put my feet up, wait til I start to feel peckish before I think about dinner and then maybe just go out and get it at a restaurant, and if I never get hungry I never have to worry about it.  I could wake up on Saturday whenever I wake up, and then think – ahhh, it’s lovely weather today, I think I’ll golf/have a picnic/go have a burger in a beer garden/see if there’s a concert somewhere.  I didn’t feel like I had oceans of free time before these children were born, but boy did I.

I recognize that my children won’t be small forever, I am blessed to have them, they are growing so fast, one day they’ll be gone and I’ll miss them, I know all of these things.  Most times knowing that is enough to keep me buoyant despite all of the endless toil that they bring.  Sometimes, though, that ISN’T enough.  Knowing that one day when I’m fifty I’ll be able to sleep in again is not sustaining me right now.  I need help.  I want help.  I want this endless stream of obligations to just, like, let up for a little bit.  I want a good friend here, who I can call when my husband is out of town on a Saturday, and maybe she and I would take the kids together to a park or something, so I wouldn’t feel so alone.  I’d love to have my mom or sister here so I could call her on days like this, and even if we just went to the grocery store and did laundry like I have to do, we could do it together.

It’s been very “Woe is me” lately here.  I promise I’ll perk up again soon.  It’s just been a hectic fall, too much travel, too little rest, and pregnancy hormones and anxieties don’t help.  The Gestational Drag has got me draggin’.

We’ve lived in Alabama for a year.  I remember I didn’t feel like part of a community of friends in our North Carolina home until at least three years had passed, so I just have to be patient.  We’ll get there.  It just takes time.  I have a maternity leave coming up, and since the husband gets to take a generous paternity leave, he will actually be here all the time for a long while.  I know how difficult newborn-care can be, but even so I can’t help but think of that leave as being a little oasis of rest in an otherwise nonstop life.  If I can just drag us to January . . . just a few more months.  Then we can re-set, rejuvenate.  I’ll be able to bend over.  It’ll be awesome.  I can get there.