American Girl

She waits another week to fall apart...

If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace. ~ Thomas Paine

You missed all the excitement. 

Well, ok, not all of it.  But for a brief moment in time, I was officially unemployed.  A stay at home mom.  Or at least on my way there.  We made this big family decision that it was for the best, and I quit my job.  For serious, with a letter of resignation and everything.  I wouldn't even take it back when my boss said "no".

This was something that I really wanted, or thought so anyway.  There were a number of things that contributed to it.  And I don't mean that as in "It was just a lot of little things that added up to one big thing..." I mean there were a number of very valid concerns as big as this world that brought us to this decision.  Huge things, such as Ryan being approved to go back to work on November 1st. (Yay!)  And my mom leaving a gaping hole in this world. (Boo)  And the fact that I've invested wisely, and therefore I can quit my job. (Yay) And the fact that, although I probably shouldn't discuss it but I don't care so I will, someone at work named me personally as a defendent in an idiotic lawsuit she's pursuing, and dammit, for this I leave my babies at home?  It was all just feeling so thankless, and if that's not enough, Hope is going through an "only mom will do" stage, so when I do something, like take a shower, she sits outside the bathroom door crying.  And not long ago she woke up super early, before I left for work, so I sat with her on my bedroom floor and read her a book even though I didn't really have the time if I was going to make my train.  Then we both got up and I went to the bathroom and started drying my hair, and a few minutes later I looked in the mirror and she was standing in the doorway with a new book she had run to fetch, watching me,  looking devastated.  Yeah, that sucked.  That was the day that I made up my mind.

Next week I'll blog about the day I changed my mind back, even though it was less of a "moment" than it was a long slippery slide down a muddy avalanche into a pool of muck not completely unlike the Bog of Eternal Stench.  I'm slightly ashamed to admit that I can be bought,  but slightly proud to admit that I'm not cheap.  My boss brought in the bulldogs and they said all the right buzz words like "work from home" and "three day weekends" and "big honking raise" and while all my alarms were sounding, I screamed "No!" because I remembered my precious little girl's crest-fallen face when I chose dry hair and the LIRR over "Big Bears Can", and I reminded them, for example, that last year I totally missed Halloween and Hope was asleep before I even got home to see her in her costume, and back then I swore to myself that things would calm down and the hours wouldn't be so crazy and I waited for an "eventually" that never really came and I needed to make a choice, dammit! (Whew!  Run-on City!)  What's more important here?

Blech.  It's not an easy decision, as you can see.   But like Snow White's Witch with the lovely red apple, they say "Well, go spend Halloween with your family.  Take the whole week and think about it, and we'll hold off on any annoucements until you get back."

You know, I had already started wondering if I had the kind of personality that could rest easy while being totally dependent on a man, even if he is my husband.  And just as I started wondering that about myself, Ryan said, in the most gentle way possible, that perhaps we would be a little crazy to walk away from this job, this career that I really love, and these people who seem to think they just can't get along without me, so much so that it  beffudles me.  I'm fairly certain that I've never used that word before in my entire life, so you must know that I really mean it.

But I tell you, for a fleeting moment I tasted my early retirement, and it was lovely and scary and exciting and depressing all rolled into one.  Eh, someday it will happen for real.

Just in case you're thinking I've completely lost my sense of humor, this Sunday I'm running a marathon.  26.2 miles.  Ha!  I am ridiculously unprepared for this event, but I trudge on because my mom told me to do it.  It's another story, but this is entirely too long already, isn't it?  I'll show you my medal when I'm done.

posted by: AmericanGirl at 22:20 | link | comments (10) |