Just say when

I officially hit a wall about 2 weeks ago.

I had worked from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. at three different places in one day, and I just hit a place where I couldn't do another damn thing that day. I came home from work and looked at my kids asleep in their beds, and although these thoughts come to me everyday, on this day it was too much. I had no idea what they had done, or said or played with or eaten. I left them half asleep in the morning and returned to them asleep at night. I didn't know if they had colored or ridden tricycles or just watched t.v.

I didn't hear them laugh, not once.

What I did know was this: They are small and precious and I am missing millions of moments in their lives that I will never get back and neither will they. These are things that I think about everyday, and it crushes me. To keep going, I routinely think of my extended family, especially my day and of how hard they have all worked in their lives and I think what I am doing is nothing by comparison. But on this day it was not enough.
So, I quit a job.
That makes two jobs for me now. Just two. It has been completely hectic for us this past six months. Most of my days looked something like this: Get up, get kids and self ready for work, drop kids off with daycare lady, run to Job A, work five hours taking Diet Coke breaks, run pick up kids drop them off at next sitter or at Duppy's, run to Job B, work four or so hours, pick up kids, tuck them into bed, eat bowl of cereal, do dishes, load of laundry, read emails, go to bed. Depending on the day, there would also be a Job C stuck in there for good measure. On the weekends, I sometimes go to the Church of Books and Nature, but mostly I try to get the house as clean as possible for the next week since I don't have any time to really deep clean during the week. Yes, it shows. I'm typically embarrassed to let anyone in anymore. Funny, I used to be kind of a clean freak... I just don't have time these days.

Come to think of it, I still have three jobs if you consider the kids, but I've never looked at that as so much of a job as a privilege. (Yes, it's incredibly difficult, but a privilege nonetheless.) I'm offering this up as both a confession and an explanation. To everyone who has called me supermom or wonder woman or workaholic masochist: I'm not. I am exhausted 50% of the time. I just abuse Red Bull (oh, sweet life giving nectar of the gods) and push myself as hard as I can for as long as I can. For those of you who have chastised me for not spending enough time with my kids: you're right. I miss them. All the time. They miss me. Do I think that money is more important than my kids? Absolutely not. My career? Nope, although I do hope to pursue my career at full throttle at some point down the line.

So, why have I been working so much? Here's why:

No, it's not any of your damn business, but like everyone else in an economic downturn, we seem to be on the more red ink side of the family budget. Robb's bonuses, salary and annual raise and upcoming promotion were all cut as a cost cutting measure at his work. We were lucky. He's the only one of seven managers left standing and he so far has escaped most of the company layoffs. I'm proud of him for this. However, I thought we could tighten up and still be ok, if we were careful. But then there were a few months somewhere in there where we went from being 'slow down on the trips, new clothes and eating out' garden variety broke to kind of struggling.

At any rate, I rounded up my resolve and three jobs and pushed forward thinking that I could get us caught up. This economic leviathan that everyone in our culture is raising a raucous about isn't a depression. My grandparents went through the Great Depression and its subsequent 25 percent unemployment rate. Relax, we're only at 7 percent. They literally starved, went without shoes, clothes and plumbing or heat. I'd argue that the lifestyle that I have, although obviously not as opulent as most of my friends, is still comfortable. Please don't mistake this as sour grapes, either. I'm very happy for my friends and their successes. Way to go everyone! But, I'm also very grateful that we aren't one of those families who lost their homes and are living in that tent city in downtown Sacramento. Even those poor folks are getting evicted from their humble abodes there...they don't even have vans down by the river to joke about.

We have a little house, and a nice backyard and even though it feels like the Brady Bunch, for now it's enough. It's not the Ritz, but I am grateful for what it is. Struggling financially at least seems to be an acceptable thing to do, at least in terms of Christianity--in the bible, being poor gets you into heaven! Check that out! There are some perks! I wonder how many would have actually followed his apostle John the Baptist, to live in the deserts with nothing but camel hair clothes and dried locusts and honey to eat and the zeal of the faithful? Haha. Yeah, not gonna do it, camel boy. If you look at it from a Buddhist angle, cutting off greed is considered means of ridding oneself of attachment, which only leads to suffering. So, in a certain sense, a simple life is preferable in order to be joyful. Ok, sounds good to me.

On the other end of the spectrum is this sort of competitive drive that Americans have to outdo each other, in particularly with wealth as a measure of success. Yeah, did you see her Prada purse, or check out his yacht....

I love that stuff too, don't get me wrong. But in this race to acquire, to consume, to be living breathing measures of the GDP, we lose our humanity. If having those beautiful pumps or that exquisite Mercedes makes you feel superior, how long is it before you believe you are superior to your friends with fewer trappings? We are all made of the same stuff, are we not?

I also needed time to figure out some stuff out in my head. Here's a sample from passing thoughts from yesterday: the merit of chore charts, the worth of a Falls Valley education, religion, Obama's medical plan and Supreme Court appointments, yoga, the Hogle Zoo, and how fantastic broccoli cheese soup tastes after not eating all day when you are freezing cold in JULY?! for the love of pete would someone kindly ask mother nature to take her anti-psychotic meds?, inter-species communication between whales and humans, and how is Trisha, my grandparents, my kids?, etc.

The point of that was that I like to figure things out. The last few crazy busy months for me have been good in that I have been able to think about how I, intrinsically, have always wanted my life to be a certain way. This isn't it. There things that I would like to be able to do for myself and my children and for others that I just haven't accomplished yet. I can see it now, with clarity that comes from a steady, head rushing climb after an incredible descent.

Yes, when I am at work I miss my kids like crazy. But, they know that I love them and that I do all of this unimportant nonsense for them. Hopefully with a little luck we can all pull out of this soon.

Until then, as Oscar Wilde said, "Who, being loved, is poor?"