I feel my period cramps before I open my eyes. My alarm is going off. I go to the bathroom and then wrap myself back into the cozy bed for the 10 minutes I get to have to myself before the day begins.
The air conditioner is leaking water into the furnace wiring harness so the house is stuffy. I turn it on anyway and arrange a cake pan with a sponge in it to catch the leak. My daughter is already up, inserting blackout contacts into her eyes before summer camp, where she’s a counselor in training this week and next. I wash last night’s dishes that I left in the sink and make a cup of coffee while she hovers nearby, waiting for the kitchen to be clear so she can pack her lunch. The dog is compulsively scratching his face, his allergies are flaring and his eyelid is bleeding because he won’t stop. I make note to try to make an appointment for the vet.
We get in the car at 7:00. I spend 30 minutes fighting rush hour just to turn around, the return trip is always longer. It’s 8:15 and I’ve been up for 2 and a half hours before I can finally make breakfast, feed the dog, sit down at my desk.
In addition to the leaking AC, the garage got broken into last night and the kid’s bike got stolen, though thankfully nothing else. I’m grateful the petty thief didn’t take the car that I desperately need to takes us where we need to go, nor the miter saw, the one I bought him for Father’s Day 5 years ago, the one he said was too much and I should take it back. I’m using it to finish the basement, a project that has to wait on hold, at least until the air conditioner and the persistent rain stops making the bottom floor of my house into a swamp.
I juggle work meetings, I’ve been contracting for 3 years and have just been offered a full time position. It’s a pay cut of $35K and I’m trying to wrap my brain around that while wondering how I’ll make ends meet and if I can somehow get a second job. I try to get groceries before doing the camp drive in reverse in the afternoon, leaving at 2:50 to make it to pick up by 3:30 and then fighting my way back, hoping it’s less than 90 minutes this time. I’m so tired of being in the car. Of all of the things that are hard about solo parenting, the dishes, the laundry, the unbearable weight of having to always make all of the decisions: right now, the thing that crushes me the most is the fucking driving.
Back at home, my son is eager to see me, we haven’t talked all day. Though we’ve both been home, between meetings and camp pick up and errands (I need to call the vet, oh shit and pick up my daughter’s glasses, and there’s two prescriptions waiting at the pharmacy) he tries not to bother me unless he catches me in the kitchen. He tells me he really needs me to make good on the promise I made to take him to the computer store, his hard drive has been full for months and I’ve been promising we could do an upgrade.
I make an appointment for tomorrow at the tech place, we can drop it off on the way to his therapy appointment that I scheduled over my lunch hour. When I’ll have time to pick the PC back up is anyone’s guess.
I note the date, it’s August 7th. Tomorrow is my wedding anniversary. On this day 20 years ago, we went to the zoo and got married. I feel so distant from the person I was then, but to be honest I feel distant from the person I am now. I’m angry that I’m not enjoying summer, that parenting is so hard, that I’m so tired all of the time, that the weather has been continually rainy, that I don’t feel like I’ve had a second to breathe.
I apologize to friends, to coworkers, to my socials saying I’m sorry I’m not there. I miss dinners that I don’t want to go to because I don’t have the energy. I zone out and watch tv that I don’t enjoy because getting off the couch is too much. I don’t know where I’ve been. I don’t feel like myself, I don’t feel like I can breathe. Spending 3-4 hours behind the wheel per day is not helping, in the car I feel like my brain just switches to OFF. I arrive at my destination having no recollection of how I got there.
I want to have something to say. I want to have a minute to myself. I want a break, time alone, a day where I don’t have to sit, staring at someone’s bumper while the summer slips like sand through my fingers. I try to be grateful; I try to stay in the moment, I try to go to bed early. I tell myself it won’t always be like this, in a few years I’ll look back at all the time I got to spend driving them around and I will miss it, if not the soul crushing traffic, then at least the opportunity to talk and queue up songs on Spotify to sing together through the open windows as we crawl along 394.
Completely hear you on the consternation and complexities that the career change can mean… have been there.
You feel like you’re running every scenario and possibility in your head, but there’s a massive element of trepidation that you can’t shake that’s juxtaposed to every positive you come up with. x
I love reading about your feelings and about you. You express yourself so beautifully.