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Full Moons and Safety Glass
Full Moons and Safety Glass
Balancing money, time, self, and family
Member Since: April 14, 2008 Last Signed In: November 15, 2009 Blog Views: 3929 Send To A Friend Sign Guestbook Add as a Friend
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Like many working moms I struggle with balancing my professional and family obligations. I have a “big job” (trumpet sound)…one that some people might envy. This “big job” includes a schedule that I can usually manage, a decent paycheck, autonomy, etc. etc.
It also requires travel. Ugh. Now some people think traveling for work is a perk. Maybe that is true when the traveling is sporadic or when you actually have time to get out and about and enjoy the sights and sounds. Recently, I spent two days on Coronado Island and spent exactly 45 minutes in my suit out by the pool. Not a swim suit. A business suit. Yes, most of my travel includes the following “perks”:
Despite all of this, though, sometimes it still falls apart. And fall apart, it did on Monday. And by fall apart, I mean I sat crying in the airport while Ava sat at preschool with no one to pick her up. The instant I retrieved the voice mail from her school that she had been waiting for someone to pick her up for 30 minutes, I suddenly remember the text message I had gotten three weeks earlier letting me know that her after school daycare provider wasn’t going to be able to watch her on Monday. Paul was at a job interview, I was about to board a plane, and her classmate’s mother (who can usually help out in a pinch) was on her way out of town for a lunch date. Then my Blackberry froze and I couldn’t make a call. I took the stupid battery out over and over again and it just stayed frozen. All I could do was cry. And feel totally inadequate as a mother. Ava is my sensitive kid. I was never going to live this one down. I cried some more. Luckily, the women next to me offered me her mobile phone. After a flurry of phone calls and back and forth, I got the issue resolved. Right before I boarded the flight, I talked to Ava on the phone. She was fine. I was not. Even after a women sitting near me patted me on the shoulder, smiled, and said “We were all rooting for you” and Phone Lady leaned over to me and said “You are a great mother…you had that whole situation solved in under 10 minutes.” Sure…the longest 10 minutes of my life.
Lately it seems stress has been sneaking up on me at every turn. Work has been stressful from every angle—too much travel, internal politics, challenging revenue goals, and well…just too dang much to do. The girls have been at each other’s throats. Or, rather, Carmen has been at Ava’s leg…biting her (!) during unprovoked interactions. I’m sure a crime scene investigator could match the teeth marks to Carmen’s chompers, even if I did believe “it wasn’t her” as she attests. To top it off, Paul and I have been stuck in a continual communication mis-match for weeks. Even the things that make me happy and provide a sense of self have been making me nuts with stress lately.
Part of this is my fault. OK…most of it is my fault. I worry about things I can’t control, I drink too much coffee, my normally confrontational coping skills have been worn down in the past few months in an effort to avoid petty conflict. I am tired. Did I mention the coffee and perfectionist tendencies? I know I am not alone. Most of us are stuck somewhere on this roller coaster. My main coping mechanism has been to read the entire Twilight series while I have much better things to do (and much better things to read). So, to try and combat this stress and look for answers, I went to the magic box—otherwise known as my laptop. Helpguide.org had some great tips: Stress management strategy #3: Adapt to the Stressor If you can’t change the stressor, change yourself. You can adapt to stressful situations and regain your sense of control by changing your expectations and attitude.
Just don’t take away my coffee.
Over the past year, one of my big goals was to make some new friends. My best friends include my sister (who lives four states away), my friend from college (who is single with no kids and lives 90 miles away), and my husband (who is…well… a boy). I really missed the easy nature of women friends who lived close by and who have similar life patterns to mine—work, kids, husband, sarcasm, wine, etc. The whole situation had been made worse when 18 months ago when one of my closest friends moved away.
Suffice it to say, I was ready for some new blood. I got lucky. I met some amazing women, took some chances, and now have a great circle of girlfriends that I feel like I can count on in a crisis or even just for a quick morning cup of coffee. With this new found appreciation, I started to look around at some of the friendship patterns that had emerged since leaving college. Not all of the friendships that were in place were relationships that I was even interested in maintaining. It occurred to me that it is almost as hard to walk away from a friendship as it is to make new friends. So, what is the best way to break up with a girlfriend? Should you have a conversation abut the fact that you are just “drifting apart”? Should you invoke the “its not you, it’s me” mantra? Or, should you just let the friendship languish…avoiding her emails, voicemails, and text messages? It really isn’t as easy as it first seems. There are the kids to consider, for one thing. What happens if you have decided you have had an as*ful of her, but your kids attend the same preschool or soccer team? What if you work with her and still have to see her 40 hours a week at the office? What if she remains friends with mutual friends? All of these scenarios can lead to uncomfortable exchanges and unclear path. The situation can be made worse if she doesn’t appear to be aware of your change of heart and ambivalence. I started thinking about the ex-friends I had made an effort to drift apart from over the past ten years: The Chronically Negative Friend She the friend who is always unhappy about everything. Sometimes she is one of your last remaining single friends. Men suck. Her job sucks. Basically, everything sucks. She chronically complains, yet does NOTHING to improve her situation. You avoid her voicemails and emails. To answer them just encourages more complaining. The Friend in the Really, Really Bad Relationship She is in a horrific marriage or relationship that is either 1) going nowhere or is 2) harmful emotionally, financially, or physically. Sometimes, she is cheating on her significant other or is the “other women” herself. If you are really unlucky, her partner is a total idiot and miserable to be around. More than once I have had to distance myself from this friend because she was financially or emotionally supporting her deadbeat partner. Usually, this idiot partner was someone who was either obnoxiously full of themselves or was so uninteresting that he couldn’t keep a pet rock engaged. The Last-Minute-Plan-Canceling Friend. She is always making a HUGE deal about the two of you getting together but then, without fail, cancels on you at the last minute. This often happens after you have re-arranged your schedule to accommodate her calendar, bribed/tricked your husband into watching the kids while you escape, or you have made an enormous effort to get out of your comfy clothes and lethargy only to find out after you dried your hair and put on eyeliner that she is not showing up. The Its-All-About-Me Friend. This friend is easy to spot. She is always talking about herself. Or asking for a ride. Or picking the movie or restaurant. When I was in college, I had a friend whose roommate (an old friend of hers from high school) demanded that my friend make her dinner every night and do her laundry. I don’t even do this for the guy I have been married to for the past six years. The I-Recently-Found Religion/Enlightenment/Bill O’Reilly/etc. Friend. This friend has been seemingly abducted by aliens or has been the victim of foreign bodysnatching. Now, I have no beef with the friend who started out religious, conservative, or vegan…but when a total personality change happens and the person that you once knew has completely evaporated, this can lead to confusion and probably aggravation. The situation can be made worse if she is constantly letting you know that she is praying for you or criticizing you for wearing clothes made from anything other than organic hemp. Unfortunately, this friend has often completely lost her sense of humor and irony. In general, the conclusion I came to is that life is too short to hang onto friends just because they have been your friend forever--or because your kids/husband/coworkers are entwined with her life in some way. Friendship is a two-way street, a mutual admiration and support society where you can retreat to when the little black rain cloud has been following you around a little to long. Or when you just need to kill a bottle of wine and laugh for a while. |
