I've started some version of this post at least a dozen times in the past year, but I've always stopped because I have felt it was too, raw and too, exposed. So I ask that you mamas out there who may know my husband and family be kind and not judge. But after being reduced to tears standing in the middle of the gym before 6a, here we go...
In a previous blog I talked about the "bag of guilt" (see: Guilt) I feel weighted by, but recently, due to changes in my schedule and my daughter's simultaneous shift in her schedule I'm here to say that "bag" was super-sized to a tote or overnight bag.
First, let me start with this cruel, possibly imagined, but very real feeling I have lately. While at my professional work experience, I have not felt the pressure of a clock with someone watching my time in well over a decade- I have come to feel that by my husband, my mother, my in-laws and by some of my friends someone is literally holding a stop watch to the minutes and seconds I do or do not spend with my daughter.
When I accepted a new job, a better, more exciting, but equally manageable management position...almost everyone asked if, "It was fewer days...". Huh? I don't want to make this so much about work, but I hold a very senior position, running a revenue generating department- how on earth could that be expected to be a part time job? As I try to explain that, I see disappointment wash over everyone's face. Then, the question is followed by, "Is it less hours?". Again, "Huh?" It is less stressful, and more fulfilling and provides more opportunity, but that doesn't seem to be a satisfying answer for people.
Next up on my minutes watcher is and has been for some time...is my husband. I'm not going to get into a lot of preamble on him- he is very helpful, and has never directly said what I feel is implied, but here's a sample conversation:
Him, "You know if you shower at night you get a lot more time with dd."
Me, "Yes, it is nice to get a few more minutes, but sometimes it is just necessary to wash and dry my hair in the am to look put together...".
Him, "Can't you wash it the night before?".
Me, "Yes, I try."
The point of this conversation that irks me is this, from shower to dry to make up and dressed, I've nailed the routine to 30 minutes. Pretty damn good if you ask me (or if we were to do a poll on this site, right?). But that 30 minutes isn't good enough for him. To me, and how this plays out for me in my head, he "counts" those minutes.
