Summer of My Discontent

(Written, oh, a year ago, and still true.) 

As you may have gathered, Dr. S really wants to leave his lab.  Any time now.  And I really want to go live in Virginia.  He still mostly wants to be an academic; I still mostly want to be a housewife.

Getting an academic job within a 400-mile circle is practically impossible.  However, if I wanted a job in my hometown, I could find one in about five minutes.  You see, their biggest transport company has a huge contract with with my former employers, the bicycle company.  I used to be the person telling them how to solve all their problems.*  Also, I would get paid a bazillion dollars and work reasonable hours.**  They might even hire me part-time. 

Most days, I want to stay home with the tots, never turn on a breast pump again, bake cookies, read books, feed the goats at the zoo, watch construction equipment.*** But it's hard to have this big problem in our lives, and know that, if only I would change my mind, it would all be solved.

Except it wouldn't be solved, because it's not the choice I want to make.  I would like it, and I would hate it.  I would miss the babies.  I would be tired and stressed again. 

If I were a little less useless and watermelon-feeling, it wouldn't be such a big deal.  But as a housewife, I'm largely a failure.  I mostly have dinner ready-ish when the spouse gets home; I hate cleaning, so I don't.  I read a lot and do whatever the hell I feel like (within very narrow child-delimited parameters).  Add in a new baby and it's going to be Tornado, With Pasta, Central around here. [Ed.: Now I feel like a fat slug instead of a watermelon.  And it's more like After Big Thunderstorm, With Pasta, Central.]

It's partly the pregnancy.  I feel so exhausted that I wonder if I should plan more structured things for Bug, but don't.  I mean, we go lots of places (playgroup, library, zoo, farmer's market, swim lessons, park, museum) and do lots of things (baking, reading, gardening, drawing, walks, goat-feeding), but I don't do Two-Year-Old Educational Time as a formal thing.  On the other hand, he talks, has pretty good fine motor control, follows directions (sometimes), can count to ten (now twenty!), knows all his colors, is potty trained, and sleeps 10 hours in a row every night; what more do I want? [Ed.: Um... we still do the exact same things all day.  Except I'm not pregnant.]

I feel so helpless and out of control.  I feel cranky and, paradoxically, like if I were running something professional, I'd feel better.  (Probably, I'd just feel more exhausted, and my house would be dirtier.)

I don't really have a point.  I'm just full of angst. 




*Actually, I was that person for the second-largest transport company in the country.  Which is about ten times the size of this one.  I do not exaggerate. 


**Not like a consultant's bazillion, but more than an academic.  Or I wouldn't work there.  But they'd be well-advised to hire me and pay well.  I'm a troubleshooter ("See trouble, shoot it") and would make a terrible peon ("See annoying manager, shoot it").

*** Today's post-nap monologue: "The pavement profiler chewed up the pavement and then the roller came by and smoothed out the asphalt!  The dump truck beeped!  The machine put down the gravel and the roller came and..."  Yes, he knows a LOT of truck words. (Bug was 2.5 at the time)