Friday, June 12, 2009

Adjusting to the New Schedule

So, my new life of semi-single motherhood is going okay. I've only had one gargantuan emotional breakdown, but luckily Brandon heard me out. I also have not murdered the children, so we're good there. And most of the plant-life outside is still alive! I've also accomplished some things, like a blog post or two, lots of mormonwoman.org stuff, keeping up with the laundry, the finances, the housework, the meals, the grocery shopping, and my callings. The kids are gettin' themselves educated each morning, I'm teaching the girls piano lessons, and I've even taught #4 how to say his whole name!
I've only forgotten a few birthdays, births, parties I RSVP'd to attend, and one or two loads of laundry in the washer.
So, I'm doing okay. It's busy, but it's okay.
Not thrilling.
Just okay.
Okay is good.

Brandon is working his tail off --up every morning at 5AM to study, off to work by 8AM, not home until after 6PM, and although he's only gone every other weekend for school, he did have Youth conference last weekend, so that's three weekends he's been gone...but it's fine. There's no London trip this month, so hooray for that! However, he's still finding time to fulfill his callings, play in his work's softball league, play on the computer, and root for the Lakers.
Btw, GO LAKERS!!

In fact, I noticed a trend and I politely brought it to his attention (okay, okay, it was the emotional breakdown): We are trying to live our lives the way we used to live our lives, but now with half the time in which to live. And although I made it sound like it was mostly his fault (and he knows it kind of is, what with his home-life being all drastically limited now), I realized a few days after the emotional outburst that I've been trying to do the same thing. I'm trying to fit in everything I used to fit into my life when Brandon was around all the time. And so is he --which, normally, wouldn't be a big deal, you know. See, I want to sit and watch TV all day. I want to blog and Facebook and surf the net. I want to read my novels and watch my movies and go out with the girls.
But I can't.
And Brandon can't do just his stuff, either.
Because who suffers when we do this?
Us, of course. If we go weeks without a date or talking, then how will our marriage survive the next 2 years? Of course, we're not the only ones that suffer. Who else suffers?
The children. [Please, won't someone think of the children!?]
We need to spend time with them, too. Luckily for us, FHE is a no-brainer-non-negotiable. Plus, we enjoy doing stuff with them --when we remember to...

So, it's kind of nutty, this figuring-it-all-out-stuff-and-how-do-we-do-it-without-destroying-our-family --we have to make it work. And we are. It's just not as easy as I assumed it would be. I thought I was prepared! I mean, the mental decisions were there --but not the practical ones.
Which stinks, because I used to be good at the practical.

Ah, well. Thus is life.

3 comments:

Cristy said...

Ah, Mrs. Cheryl. I miss seeing you now that preschool is over!

I don't know how you do it. I heard a talk recently in church that talked about Thriving and not just surviving. It was devestating for me to hear on that particular day because I had just made peace with the idea of just surviving. The truth is? It is ok not to thrive at every point in life. Their are times when we just have to survive (as gracefully as possible) and sometimes we are surviving minutes, hours, days, or even a year at a time. And that's OK. Life is short, but it's also pretty long.

I recently re-read Lord of the Rings, and even on that long epic journey, they often stopped to rest for months at a time. It takes a LONG time to accomplish all that we hope to do.

Jocelyn said...

Life just has wrinkles sometimes and all we can do is get used to them, right? Sounds to me like you're doing awesome.

Alison Wonderland said...

It's funny how we do this, add on a few more things and forget that to do that we need to subtract some. You'll figure it out though. One way or the other.