|
Life After Work
Sandra Duncan
I've been throwing dirty dishes into the sink, a little too hard, not
quite hard enough to break them but almost wishing for the release of
shattering glass. Of course I don't want to break my dishes, I'm just
tired of washing them all the time. Somehow my transition to
stay-at-home mom is missing a June Cleaver component that would keep me
cheerful through the end of the day. Maybe pearls would help.
It's been a year since I quit a 20-year run as a member of the
high-tech, high-pressure, Bay Area workforce. It wasn't much fun anymore
and it was a good time to go. But without an annual performance review
to score my worthiness, I find myself trying to articulate major
accomplishments (few and far between) and minor ones (lots if you count
getting dressed whether I have to leave the house or not.) While not
every day is filled with capital "L" Living, nearly any day beats
commuting on the freeway.
In the absence of "real" work, I've found the time to read the paper in
the morning, the opportunity to shop for groceries on a weekday, the
ability to stay awake past 9:00 p.m., and the curse of always being home
first to start dinner. My presence in the household has had an impact
on all of its members. My dog thinks I quit my job to spend more time
with her. My son thinks I quit my job to spend more time learning 6th
grade math. My daughter thinks I quit my job to spend more time cooking
things she won't eat. My husband thinks I'm a lot nicer to be around
these days.
Here are some things I've learned from getting reacquainted with my
home, my family, and myself:
I way underestimated the efforts of my babysitter/housekeeper. (Bring
yours some flowers today.)
Time may be money, but having time is not the same as having money.
"I'm sorry, I'm not working," effectively deters phone solicitors.
The rewards of being a stay-at-home mom are directly proportional to the
joy derived from chaperoning field trips. If you ever have the
opportunity to be one of only two adults supervising 35 mostly male
12-year-olds at a full-length production of the opera Madame Butterfly,
just say no. Like trading in high-tech stocks, this is not a task for
the faint of heart.
The irony of having time to spend with your teenaged children is that
you often can't stand to be around them. The blessing is hearing them
come through the door and knowing that another day has been safely
navigated.
My inner self is more like Roseanne than Martha Stewart.
My outer self gets to wear jeans and tennis shoes every day.
My other self still has dreams about being at work but they no longer
register as nightmares.
It's possible to read a whole book in less than a month.
It's possible to clean the whole house in a day, but no one will care.
Those nagging little things you never seem to have time to do? They
still don't get done. It turns out that time has nothing to do with it.
But time is still on my side and I'm feeling for the first time that
there is enough of it to deal with life's necessities and still squander
bits of it here and there. Imagine being able to spend a weekday
afternoon watching "Harold and Maude" on TV with your 14-year-old
daughter and hear her laugh at all the right parts.
There's no question that I was more efficient when I was working and
singularly proud of this skill, but I am slowly coming to understand the
difference between "spending" time and "wasting" it, and to realize that
I have a choice between the two. I can experience priceless moments I
didn't have the time or energy or opportunity to seek out before. Now
that I'm unemployed my time is worth literally nothing, I am finally
free to take advantage of its value.
© Sandra Duncan
Submit your comments on this story to our MoxieTalk
discussion group by clicking here!
You can also send your comments directly to the author using the
form below.
You can do both by typing your response below,
submitting it and then copying it, going to MoxieTalk, and pasting it
into the form there for posting a message.
Copyright 2002 Moxie Magazine All Rights Reserved
|