For the first time in 20 years, I am not working 40 hours a week. Well, that’s not true, I was unemployed for a bit, but anyone who’s ever been unemployed knows that DOESN’T count.
And it’s not temporary. It’s for a couple of YEARS. The plan, Friends, is for me to step back a notch to be here for our boys until they graduate high school. This means I am now primarily responsible for the following things:
- Feeding everyone (grocery shopping and meal prep)
- Household upkeep and maintenance (and cleaning sort of – we still have our wonderful cleaning people every other week. I am a brat.)
- Being here after school and being aware of all school related things (grades, events, etc)
- Working 15 – 20 hours a week at my part time job
Now, I actually enjoy everything on that list. But here is the problem: for the last 20 years of being a working mom, I have done all these things. Just really, really quickly and not particularly well. And I’m having a hard time learning how to slow down and do them with intention and a somewhat normal pace.
Yes, I know, boo-hoo poor me you should start a telethon for your poor self . . . it’s ridiculous and I am incredibly grateful for this time. But the problem is I can’t seem to slow down!
It sort of reminds me of when my brother and sister moved out and it was just me, my mom and dad. My mom couldn’t stop cooking for 5 people. She tried! She really did! But every night we would sit down to at least 30% more food then we needed.
Efficiency and multi-tasking, it would seem, are tremendous gifts, as all working parents understand. Things MUST be done quickly, preferably while doing other things, and we must move through tasks as fast as we can because we don’t know what the next moment will hold. Someone might throw up. Someone might not show up for the big project at work. A pipe might burst and your basement will flood (wait, too soon to be funny).
We do this is at work and we do this at home. Heck, we even do it at Target and at the gas station (I once challenged myself to delete 30 emails while I filled up my tank. No lie.)
And now, when I can slow down and take my time with my tasks (and bonus, do them with more accuracy) I am having trouble finding my middle gear.
Today, I worked on my home office/creative space. I refuse to call it a craft space because I don’t like crafts. At least I think I don’t like crafts. Maybe I do but I’ve just been in too much of a hurry to do them? Note: go to Michael’s to figure out if I like crafts. Oh, and bonus, in this space I can do things like pay bills sitting down. After 2 decades of doing it while the water is boiling for the spaghetti, this will be new.
This space is mine and mine alone, and here I can write and pray and draw (even though I stink at it) and basically find my true north. Or something. Or maybe I’ll just find some of the 100s of books of forever stamps I’ve purchased over the years because I can’t remember if I have any more left. I will literally have stamps until my great-grand children die at the rate I’m going. Assuming I can find them all. The stamps not the great-grand children.
And, in true form, in 2 years when it’s time for me to get back into the workforce full time again, I will forget how to be the efficient woman who can work 45 hours a week and still not get kicked out on the street because she forgot to pay the mortgage. And we’ll do the cycle all over again.
In ever season . . . . .
Jen