When I got off the 74 bus downtown this morning, and I was walking up the massive hill to where my training was held, I thought, "Thank God it's Friday!" I don't think I've had that thought since I quit my job before Claire-Adele was born.
I finished my first full-time week of training this afternoon. This was the first week of nine-to-five* that I have completed in ages. When I ran for School Board, that was a 24/7 gig, so there was no celebration of the end of the week because it was one continuous flow of work. There were breaks here and there, but weekends were just as busy as weekdays, sometimes more so.
My friend Mary sent me a meme with a smiling woman that read "That moment when you realize that being a stay-at-home-mom means you never actually leave work." When I was** a stay-at-home-mom, I was always a stay-at-home-mom. Weekends meant the kids were home. While it might have been a break for them, it wasn't a break for me. To be honest, sometimes I looked forward to Mondays.
This week was a hard week, but a good week. My brain was crammed full of information. I thought it would be overload, but the opposite happened. It was like I was taking an SQL and Business Intelligence immersion class. The more I was there, the more everything made sense. I was feeling better when I left on this afternoon, but my brain was ready for a break.
Jack seems to be okay with me working so far. I thought this would be a bigger adjustment for him than me. He is used to me picking up all of the slack around the house and with the kids. This week, Jack shuttled kids to and from various lessons and appointments. This evening, Claire-Adele had to be someplace by 6:00 p.m. I told Jack I'd be home in time to take her.
"No," he said. "I need to take her. I told people at work I have to drive Claire-Adele and I need to leave by 5:00." Jack now has a legitimate reason to say no to extra work, and he is using it.
I even had good luck with buses today. The 74 buses run twenty minutes apart in the afternoon. I thought I was going to miss the 4:11, but it was running a few minutes late. I saw it coming and ran to catch it. Evan, my physical therapist, would have been proud of me! When I got off the bus in my neighborhood, I was smiling. I survived.
Maybe even thrived.
* Some days this week were 8:00 to 4:00. Same difference.
** That was the first time I used "was" in a sentence with "stay-at-home-mom."
This blog is about the little and big thoughts that pop into my head. I once read that when Flannery O'Connor walked into a bookstore, she would want to edit her published works with a red pen. In the digital world, we have the luxury of tweaking things up after we've hit the publish button. I can be a perfectionist/procrastinator, where waiting for the ideal means little gets done. Here I will share what is not--and likely will never be--perfect.
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