The Night Before

My little family is going on vacation without me tomorrow. They'll be gone all week while I take on a training session at work with later hours. This choice was made because Jack's schedule was not manageable if I couldn't pick him up before 5:00, so the Dude took his week of vacation for the summer.

And so he's taking Jack to the lake because that's where we were planning on going. No reason he should have a crummy summer, missing out, just because things changed on my end.

And this will be good for me. I've been wanting this training and now I'm going to learn new things at work. So overall, it's a good thing. It'll be good for the Dude to have this time with his parents and Jack, some freedom from work, fresh air...

But damn. Five straight days and nights without them. I'll be honest, I had a little cry this evening.

I have some visits with friends lined up, and I'm really looking forward to those. It'll be wonderful to have the ability to just go hang out without any worries in the world about my responsibilities. But it'll also be mandatory for my emotional wellbeing because it's going to be really lonely around these parts for awhile.

I predict I'll be okay for a couple days, but by the end of the week I'll be a wreck. I'm going to miss my little pumpkin.

End Of Maternity Leave Musings

10 days and no post?!

Well, Jack has had a runny nose and in the cold with its leakiness, I haven't much left the house with him. I took him for a doctor's appointment yesterday in the freeeeezing cold. During nap time. So I left early and walked there so he could nap in the stroller. That's love, man. But what was it all for? Nothing, really. He has a virus, non-contagious and even though it's last TWO WEEKS, it just has to run its course.

And I have one week left of maternity leave and this is how it gets spent.

I find myself really realizing what makes parenthood so challenging. It's not the loss of time, although that is an adjustment. It's not the new daily tasks you must perform, even though they're time sucks.

It's the not knowing how to do things.

It's wondering how to handle a baby when you've never cared for one and he's crying at night, even though he always sleeps through, and you don't know what his damage is this evening and maybe he needs Tylenol for teething (Is he teething?) or a bottle (Why is he hungry at 11 pm AND 5 am?)

It's wondering if he really should be eating purees still, and how are you going to manage dinner when mat leave is over because you never know what time your husband will get off work but your baby starts his bath routine at 6:30 and you won't even have him home till 5:00 after not seeing him all day, so make dinner?!

Should my baby be pointing? He's clapping and waving, but pointing is not happening. What do you mean 11-month-old babies can speak words? Does bababababa or dadadada count? He's walking everywhere! That's early? Why did he have to be advanced in the one area that makes life harder?! No, he's not using a spoon. He's gagging and vomiting if he doesn't care for the texture of what he's eating.

It's an endless sea of questions you don't have the answers to. You're enclosed in a dome of shoulds.

And now with barely no time at all left in my leave, I find myself almost mentally throwing in the towel. The daycare will help him now. I've done all I can, all I know how to do. I need to outsource some of this.

And of course it'll lead to other concerns: Is he getting enough attention? Is he eating enough at daycare? Sleeping enough? What's he doing now?

Sigh. Ambivalence.

It takes up a lot of mental space. It's the largest emotional investment I've ever made. I'm never done; there's always more issues and development and cleaning and mobility ahead.

I'm starting to forget life before Jack. Not intellectually. I recall lazy Sundays and brunch, going out for a movie in the evening, dinner invites on a whim, my friend's houses, quick travel. What I only vaguely recall is the lack of responsibility. I've acclimatized to being truly needed, physically depended on for life and survival. It's a part of my daily mentality. There's no going back.

And with that comes the sense all the shit I do now really matters. And it kind of does. Think about going home and eating dinner and talking to someone. Now what's for dinner plays into a child's growth and nutrition. The way I speak models language and behaviour. The way I interact with my husband around my baby teaches about relationships and communication. The toys I provide and the places I take him are opportunities for learning through play.

And these are everyday considerations.

Motherhood is not coal mining hard. It's not air traffic control hard. It's not being an astronaut hard. It's just... hard, in an unending sort of way.

And the really messed up part of it is how if you asked me if I'd take any of it away I'd look at you like you were crazy. This hardness, it's all mine. And the Dude's. Relinquishing it is horrifying.

And yet that's what mat leave ending is kind of about on a small scale. It's going to be a dizzying amount of personal freedom, coupled by sadness, along with worry and excitement at the end of the day. It's exhausting to think about.

Last Day of Work

In a matter of days, my friend/bridesmaid Lyn from California will be here in Toronto, in Canada for the first time, and man will it be chilly times. I'm looking forward to showing her around the city: Roncesvalles, the Annex, Queen West, maybe the Distillery District or Little Italy. There's something awesome about introducing someone to the city you love. I haven't seen her since May of last year, so this is going to be great.

I'm also looking forward to having her meeting my other friends in my party. My maid of honour has met McPal, but my cousin from Vancouver and Lyn have met nobody. I foresee a good group. It's hard not to imagine harmony and fun times when all people concerned are so great.

I've just finished my last day of work for 10 days. I don't totally need the time for wedding planning. Everything is actually done now. But I had the time, and Lyn's in town, so why the hell not? I never take as much vacay as I really should. It tends to pile up while I get frazzled about life and still not take time off.

Things I have left to do:

1. Change my life insurance over to the Dude instead of my brother.
2. Make a final payment to the florist.
3. Make a final payment to DJ.
4. Pick up my dress.
5. Go to the bank and withdraw all the monies I'll need to pay certain people in cash day-of.
6. Get final cost from the venue and write them a cheque.
7. Spend some more time breaking in my shoes.
8. Go to my colonic and spa appointments.

And then it's just the day before, where I'll have my colonic early in the day, check into my hotel with my dress and Lyn, go to the rehearsal, set up some centrepieces, and then go out for dinner back at the hotel. Easy peasy. I'm so glad I got a planner for the nitty gritty vendor stuff for the last week. Otherwise, I'd probably be more stressed out.

I'm really looking forward to seeing everyone, and I'm highly anticipating a time after the wedding where I can channel my emotional investment into other things in my life.

Vacay

I think I need a vacation. I've taken some time off here and there, and I have three- and four-day weekends coming up in October and I have the week before my wedding off. But none of this is a vacation. Time spent not working is beneficial, but I need to actively relax.

I think about my work day in the evening. I feel out of sorts in the afternoon, thinking about work. Considering I don't have a high-powered job, I think this is a bad sign as I'm neither a perfectionist nor a workaholic. I believe in working to live, rather than the reverse, and that the personal life I have trumps my professional one in overall importance. So my focus on work is making me anxious and I think I'm getting burnt out.

I was just able to crack my wrist in a totally weird way. It's so rough. My right hand no long makes an easy fist and I've lost some power in my grip. Combined with the aches and stress, I think I could easily spend a week at a spa, letting them mould and rejig me back into proper working condition. If only.

I've often thought that if I had been born in an earlier time, I'd be dead by now. I had tonsillitis, pneumonia and appendicitis and I deal with a host of nonsense and a foolish sleep schedule that has never made sense. If the infection, the fluid-filled lungs or burst organ wouldn't have got me despite a lack of modern medicine, the tribe would have given the likes of me the boot by now.

Really, what I could use the vacation from is my body. Ha!

IBS at Work

IBS is still busy ruining my life.

It's hard to chart the severity of this bullshit, but it really feels to me like it's getting worse over time. I used to take the odd day off from work to quietly manage my symptoms in peace and let them pass, but now that I'm working from home, doing that feels wrong. So I try to work around my bad days.

But this is very difficult. IBS is something that keeps me up at night. By the end of the day, I'm usually riddled with gas. It's like it gets trapped in there and doesn't want to come out unless it's en masse. The belching can actually force itself out of me and it can be painful. And it's something that will keep me up.

And if that's not happening, I'm often backed up, pardon the expression, which inherently steals my energy and robs me of rest due to rumbling discomfort.

So sometimes, being unable to sleep until 3:00 or 4:00, I don't wake up in time for 8:00 to start work. I figure I can get at least another hour or two, and then skip a break and work late if my work assignment sheet will allow it, and it usually does. At least then I don't have to be thoroughly exhausted, only rather tired.

But when the, shall we say, gates open, the day is shot. But I still work. Why? Because I work from home and feel too foolish to call in on these days and say my bowels are malfunctioning again, I need the day off. It's embarrassing.

Occasionally these open-gate days coincide with a late night. It's a terrible whammy of suffering. And I have taken the day off a couple times, but not as often as they happen.

Why? I just feel like they need me. I know they do. My sudden absence (anyone's really) throws off the whole schedule. The other two people who do what I do could be overloaded. I feel immense pressure to work through it.

My health is suffering, though. My mind is frazzled. I'm getting very burnt out. I feel anxious about work now, because I feel like I'm falling behind, always needing a nap I can't take, always bloated and cramped. Unfortunately, stress is a major trigger, and this whole thing is stressing me out.

And I am pretty sure my work doesn't understand. And this is my fault. I just loathe the thought of calling in and explaining this. Who wants to talk to their bosses about their bowel dysfunction and explain why it's impairing ability to work? I try to make it sound like it's not a big deal when I do mention it. I don't want to complain and get honest about it, because when I do I cry.

And now I'm at a crossroads. I had a terrible day at work, where I had to admit I was well behind because I spent so much time in the bathroom. And I know they were frustrated with me. I'm harder to get a hold of via email, which makes their job harder. Well, I'm away from my desk frequently to use the toilet or lie on my stomach or do some stretches to ease my discomfort.

I'm not sure what to do. Do I sit down with my boss and give her a doctor's note and explain my situation? It feels so needy and whiny. And I've recently had a separate health concern regarding the computer. But what I've been doing is catching up to me. I feel emotionally drained from this whole thing.

I have good months, the sort where I actually tell myself I just don't have IBS anymore, just to feel free, but I haven't had a symptom-free stint in awhile. And I long for that, I really do.

Summer Days

The Dude is home from a quick business trip, but his work schedule is still maniacal. This is good for our bank account; all that overtime now will translate into a stress-free fall this year. But it's a bummer for me on a personal level because I miss his company, and for him it means his time not working is spent resting and waiting for tomorrow, instead of being up for fun. There were some wedding DIY projects we were going to do together, however I've decided to take that off his plate. My time is free and I enjoy crafting, anyhow.

I'm planning for us to take a couples day at the spa to get massages. My body is creaky and my hands and arms have significant issues; the Dude is stressed and exhausted. Massages together is something we've done once before a couple years ago, but I think it's high time we did it again. Poor soul needs a little rejuvenation. We usually go up to his dad's for Labour Day weekend for a horseshoe tournament, but he can't bear the thought of using any of his days off travelling on the highway.

I think I've enjoyed this summer, though it's not been the sort of summer I had originally envisioned. I haven't swam once, didn't go to Canada's Wonderland, or even sit out on a restaurant patio, so all the normal summery things haven't gone down. But I have grown a backyard garden, hosted BBQs with the Dude, spent time with friends and had three lovely showers. I've also been to the AGO, seen some movies and started a high tea Sunday with my pals. And of course, I've been planning a wedding.

It's not been a typical summer, basically. But a summer spent planning a wedding and being with people you love is pretty great.

But I need a vacation. The other day I went to the doctor's on my day off, to see about my strained arm and wrist. Leaving the hospital, I felt a sense of urgency to get home and go back to work. But I was off. The sensation was a pleasant shock. I realized I need, and quite badly, some real time to enjoy life. I've taken some long weekends, but I need a week. Hell, two weeks would be wicked.

And I have the time banked. I'm taking the week before my wedding off. It won't be with the Dude, who was coaxed and convinced to at least take off the day before. But my bridesmaid from California is coming and I'll be able to hang out with her and show her the city. I'll be free to handle last-minute wedding concerns. I'll be able to have plenty of time to think about the big decision I'm making and let it sink in.

And then there's the potential for winning a free honeymoon via the show. I try not to think too hard about that. I don't want to want it too bad. I want to just enjoy the ride and see what happens. But damn, some free relaxation/travel/yayness would really hit the spot. We could both really use it.

The Long Weekend

Long weekends are the lifeblood of adulthood. Children in this hemisphere get two straight months off in summer, plus March break and Christmas vacation. We typically get, if we're lucky, two to three weeks in the whole year.

Though, if your parents were smart, they made the transition more gradual and less jarring by forcing you as a young teen to find work over the summer, babysitting, mowing lawns, a part-time job. Then a part-time job after school throughout the year, which would become full-time in the summer to save for college. Then full time jobs between college semesters, which is four months straight of 40-hour weeks.

By the time you're 22 and out of school and unemployed, you're thoroughly demoralized and ready for the workforce. Time off is not fun because it means you have $0 and it's horrifyingly expensive and you'll take just about anything.

So here we are.

I've been at my job for six years. That's around the time the benefits of longevity kick in. I now have four weeks of vacay. It's not the two months of carefree summer of my youth, but when would that ever be possible again? Retirement, I guess, but with less energy and more applesauce.

The Dude has been working like a maniac. He's been accepting weekend work, making him work six days straight with only one day off, or worse, the whole weekend resulting in 12 straight days. While I admire his gusto for his career, I realize I alone am monitoring his physical and mental health. He's too busy to realize he's ruining his health.

So this three-day weekend was a godsend. I claimed the entire three days from any work, labour or undesirable activity. It was my mission to play a fun few days for him to finally get some rest, partly for his happiness, partly for mine so he could stop being Captain Grumpy. All work and no rest makes Dude a dull boy.

We're on the last day and he's mellow yellow. We'll be capping this weekend of fun and activity off with drinks at a pub with friends. And then True Blood.

Thing about adult life seems to have a theme of quality over quantity. There's not a lot of quantity to be had, really, not of the things you want, like recreation or vacation. So it's either plan for quality or get nothing.

Sick, so sick

Oh man, I'm unwell. And it's been attacking me for days. It started on Saturday, and I have a reprieve on Sunday morning, but it teased me through the afternoon and really started in earnest in the evening. I suffered most of the night, throughout the morning and had to catch a bus home Monday afternoon.

And that wasn't too bad. I could even stop into a Starbucks for a piece of lemon seed loaf. But when I got home, that was it. Chills. I couldn't get warm, even with three blankets. I was sick to my stomach and couldn't bear the idea of food. I was weak, achy, and I completely succumbed to overwhelming fatigue. And this is on top of the highly unpleasant main symptom that had me two pounds lighter in two days while visiting my family. I'd estimate I'm down another pound.

I took the day off, after being called to the line of duty, so to speak, all last night. I couldn't bear to face the day. I could hardly pull myself out of my bed.

And now I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow, so I'm taking another medical day. I'm yet to work in my new office. It's there, ready and waiting, set up and all that jazz. I can't help but feel guilty about it. It's not like I'm well enough to be working, but my station is there, visible from my couch, and I feel delinquent.

Ugh. My stomach is aching so bad right now. I'll cut this off.

The sun will come out... tomorrow

I have had the most ridiculous two days.

Yesterday my work PC was scheduled in for some special attention. It's an old fart of a machine and it's been failing me lately. So I had to lug the beast in via cab and work from (gasp!) the office.

I tried to get set up at a makeshift work station, but the there was a hardware issue, and when I tried to work around it (Which took an hour), I couldn't make the actual station comfortable. I was too short and my elbows were raised up with my wrists at a weirdo position and I knew I couldn't go another five minutes like that.

So we tried the transcription laptop. But then I couldn't connect to the server. So I had to work at another station, and then my software wouldn't open because a piece of necessary hardware was missing.

Blah, blah, blah, right? Well, we took the hardware out of my computer, plunked into this one and I was finally able to work. I went home with my old computer and waited for the Dude to get home to reconnect things for me. And then I found out I was locked out of my email (This happens all the time) and I'd have to wait till the morning to get that resolved.

So I get this small allergy attack and I nip it in the bud with two allergy pills, which destroyed me in a good way and I passed out (I'm super susceptible to any sort of substances. They all tend to affect me heavily). Unfortunately, I forgot to set the alarm.

The Dude sprang out of bed this morning and woke up on time in a panic, but I lapsed back into a coma. Without needing to turn off the alarm, I wasn't prompted to reset it for myself.

So I woke up at noon. NOON! It was 12:00 p.m. and I still hadn't dealt with my email, which meant I hadn't gotten to my work assignment, which I needed to read to download the video I'd require to actually start work. And I had a work meeting at 1:30, which I'd need to leave for at 1:00. Basically, holy crap.

I got everything handled by 12:30 and figured I may as well try to do something before I left. Well, that didn't really work out so well because the hardware I needed to run the godforsaken software was still back at the office inserted in another computer.

Thankfully, I had to go into the office anyway, right? The meeting ended around 3:30 and I left at 4:30 after catching up with my coworkers. I walked home, taking the opportunity for exercise, and got right to my computer. That would have resulted in me finally getting some work done at 6:00 p.m. if only I had remembered to get my hardware out of the other computer.

So I called someone in admin, who was awesome enough to bring it to the closest subway station en route home. I got it at 7:00.

What a day. What a couple of days. I worked on my show for about two hours before deciding to throw in the towel and just allow tomorrow to suck while I got caught up.

And to top it off, Bea snuck in the closet this afternoon while I was getting dressed to go. She inadvertently got locked in the closet for five hours while I was gone.

Sigh.

Training for...?

I think my favourite job I ever had as a teenager was working at a hot dog cart.

I was 16 years old and my dad knew this guy from one of the bars he frequented. They talked it over and my dad arranged for me to work for this guy. He had a gray mullet and tucked his T-shirts into his shorts. But the pay was good and the work was easy. I sat on a stool under an umbrella, hanging out in nice weather at the park, grilling up hot dogs while the owner got drunk nearby. Then my best friend got a job with him and sometimes on busy days we could work together.

However, the man was a pervert and an ass. He paid me less money than the other girls, for no other apparent reason than I was, let's say, less womanly looking. He didn't observe our work, nor count the money before deciding that I should get $20 less for my day's work than my bustier co-workers.

After a fashion, I (accidentally) ruined one of his carts. Pretty sure it was an accident and not a subconscious FU to his sexist employment practices. But maybe it wasn't. But let's say it was. The assholery aside, it was still a fun job.

The worst job I ever had probably was when I was a chamber maid at the Day's Inn. My boss was a harried sort of person. She looked like she had been there a long time and had grown bitter with life. We were given 18 rooms to do a day, which meant 22 minutes per room. Yes, 22 minutes. This lead to a lot of stress. To make the deadline, sometimes I haphazardly wiped a used tub with a used towel as a means of cleaning it because I only had 3 minutes left to finish the room and about 10 minutes of work left.

This sometimes got me called back into a room to take care of a ring or some soap scum. But it's pretty shocking how frequently I got away with it. But then when you got yelled at for getting behind because you did take the extra time to do it right, you tend to make those sorts of choices. Also, a supervisor liked to go ahead to all the rooms before me, and somehow when she was working I never got tipped. Good times. The pay was also ass.

The actual work was gruelling and demanding. It had me aching and hating life each day. I got in better shape for it, though. And I got really fast at housework.

The longest job I ever held, which is closely going to be tied by my current one, was at a pita place my aunt and uncle owned. I started when I was 15. My mother was very insistent I work, my father organized this opportunity for me as well, and it all kind of just happened.

I worked there off and on, but mostly on all through high school. My cousins were in charge of me and I gave them a hard time for shits and giggles. I ate a lot of pitas. I drank countless litres of free fountain pop. By the end of high school I was 18 and I moved away. But they always got me back when I came home for reading week, Christmas, Easter, and some days in the summer.

One day my uncle convinced me to work an evening shift for him after my day shift at the Day's Inn. He came to pick me up from work to go to work and I was ready for a nap. I had a small crying fit from exhaustion in the front of the store. One of my cousins came up front and saw me laughing and sobbing in the corner near the pita steamer and didn't seem to know what to do about it. I didn't try it again.

I once worked for free (internship) at a wedding magazine. Despite the fact the pay sucked (har har), it was in many ways my dream job. I wrote about topics that were easygoing, researched topics that were mellow and pretty, and worked with women who liked their jobs. They talked me out of dressing like a slob, I got to take home hundreds of dollars worth of beauty swag from the closet and sometimes we went shopping when my boss felt like the time was right. It only lasted three months. There were no openings, and we knew my time was no longer needed when all my boss could offer me to do was organize her Rolodex. I was 21.

I was 22 when I started the job I have now. I took some time off to travel. Then I goofed around and barely looked for work until something in closed captioning fell in my lap. I've spent the last five and a half years transcribing television shows. Now I do it in my pyjamas from home. Sometimes I wonder how long this will last. My work experience doesn't exactly offer me a lot of options: Making hot dogs and pitas, cleaning up, researching how to get married and watching TV.

Thinking on it, the picture that paints is kind of depressing, isn't it?

Work in the outside world

Today I ventured out to work for the first time in over a year. We had a meeting. It was a pretty big deal, actually, because this department of 20 people never see each other anymore. Everyone was very subtly different, mostly hair related, though a couple people looked more well rested.

We did a round table of a brief recap of how our year has been. There was a marriage, an impending move to Australia (Which may or may not open a new position at work), family changes, creative works completed, and all sorts of other little items of interest.

I didn't know what to tell specifically, so I mentioned that I had moved again for the fifth time in five years, that I had to send my fed-up family yet another new address for me, and that I now inject my cat Smokey with insulin twice a day and he likes it. I imitated him to illustrate my point and said, "Meow, shot, meow!" And then I retracted and said that my cat didn't talk to me, but that I imagine he would say something like that if he could.

And then I was reminded of why I sometimes miss my co-workers, because it's not every group of people that would hear such a loopy anecdote and laugh, never mind still want to talk to me.

But about this job opening, which may or may not exist depending on the powers that be who will decide if we need a replacement or not. If it were to become available, it would be a promotion/pay raise. And the only way to get either of these things in this department is for just such an occasion to arise: someone has to quit. And in the five years (Holy shit) that I've been there, I've only seen four people leave. Two were slightly involuntary, I think, due to company changes. Turnover is very slow. People generally love this job and grip on tight.

And I've reached the end of my pay scale. I'm earning as much as this job will pay, without moving up. And I'd like to move up in some way. I'm hoping this little window might be my chance.