di·lem·ma [di-lem-uh] (n.): a situation requiring a choice between equally undesirable alternatives.
əEvery time I come into work, I wonder why I did. I hate it here, and I can’t even explain why anymore. I just do. I’m feeling useless, uncomfortable, weird. I don’t know where I should be, I don’t know what I should do, but I do know that it’s not here, not doing this.
Then I remember my other life, the one where I’m a woman, a wife, a mother, trying to manage a household and grow a person inside my body at the same time. The life where I dread waking up because it means I have to entertain all day long, as well as clean and cook and educate and maintain this facade of “we’re doing great over here” all the time. I think about reading passages from books called “Motherhood without Guilt” and realizing that the entire fucking book assumes that a mother stays home, and a father goes to work. That the guilt a mother would feel is always going to be guilt over not being able to provide for her family because the husband is the one to bring home the bacon, and that our lives must, just because we’re mothers, only involve guilt over asinine things like that. My guilt doesn’t arise from feeling insufficient or inadequate in my “money making” skills; I’ve been the main breadwinner in my little family for years and years. My guilt arises from the fact that often I wonder what it would be like to leave completely and never look back. My guilt comes from the unending urge to be free and single and hot and sexy and alone, sleeping in my own bed or with someone that I can quickly use and kick out. My guilt comes from the part of me that wishes my only obligation was to myself, and the fact that I cannot for the life of me kick that person out of my head. That I could have these thoughts makes me feel guilty – are there any books out there to help me with these feelings, without also assuming that I’m fucking barefoot in the kitchen making dinner for all of my babies and planning some romantic cock sucking for my amazing husband later that night? Fuck.
Why am I here? And is this going to last for the next two months, this feeling of anxiety and discomfort? Mentally?
I’m not really sure what to do now; every day has major highs and major lows. Today I woke up happy, because the sun was shining, the birds were chirping, Connor slept the whole night long and didn’t whine (much), and I’m just extremely glad that it’s Friday. So then I got ready, came to work, and before starting real “work”, I decided to check out car prices for a while. Just to see what we could get for our Rav4, and what we could do after selling it. As it turns out, we owe about $7,000 more than the trade in value, and about $4,000 more than the private-party value, and that means that if we do decide to go get a new car, we’ll be paying an extra $4,000 – $7,000 for the car, meaning we have to buy a scooter or something to make up the difference. WHY did we decide to buy that stupid Rav4 in the first place? Do you know why? To keep up with the Joneses. To look like we were doing well, and we were doing well, but now I think I want things to change a bit, and I don’t really care about keeping up with anything. I want a functional car, a safe car, and one that doesn’t cost $500 a month to pay for. And I want valid suggestions for how to do that. I know that if we asked Craig’s mom for advice (she works in a bank, after all), she’d suggest doing something stupid and retarded like she always does – just get a HUGE car, waste TONS of gas, and finance it forever! No thanks! I mean, I guess for now, a good option may be to lease a car, even a long lease (like 3 – 5 years), and pay a lot less per month to drive a car to where we need to go. That could be feasible, but there’s still the problem of getting rid of the Rav4, which is a really nice car by the way, but nobody wants an SUV anymore because gas costs $4.25 a gallon. I’m screwed, and really, I feel so alone in this battle against the world sometimes. Craig doesn’t look this stuff up, he doesn’t feel or notice the implications that simple things like “we can’t sell our car” mean for us. What it means is that I can’t go work part-time right now, or I can but something else, and something big needs to be cut out of our budget – but what? What do we get rid of? What do we stop doing? Do we cancel our satellite service? Do we sell the huge TV? Do I start offering to make people roman shades for their homes for pay? That’s not a bad idea, really. Anyway. I just feel like it’s all on me, there’s this huge weight on my shoulders all the time, and I don’t want this load anymore. I have a “load” that I’m carrying around in my belly, and God knows my head is full of shit, and I’m feeling so worn down and tired of it all that I can’t carry around all of this financial bullshit all the time too. Do you realize that I’ve worked full time since my son was only 6 weeks old? Never had more than a week off at a time, almost missed his first steps? I’m just losing it. Losing everything, and I’m so positive that the shit we have isn’t worth the shit I’ve missed. What’s infuriating is that I have to work on “convincing” Craig that he needs to be less materialistic and start conserving – he always wants to be frugal with things like groceries, but then he has to have the Wii and the best TV and the fancy car and nice furniture and a cool phone, and I like all of those things too – but I don’t think I’ve been the one to need them as much as he does. Anyway. I guess since I’m here, I might as well do a little work.
And don’t even suggest working some multi-level marketing plan thing, dad. I just don’t need that kind of frustration right now. I don’t need someone blowing steam up my butt, I need reality. But a better one.
