Today is the fourth day of working from home with children. We have been trying to split the day into shifts, where I work in the morning and Nick works in the afternoon. In theory, I am then picking up my laptop again after the kids are in bed. Of course, I am not actually doing that! Because what I am doing is cleaning up from the day, folding laundry, squeezing in a 45-second conversation with my husband that doesn’t involve children whining or grunting at us for things, then getting high and doing the crossword puzzle in bed on my phone.
And my sister is still very very sick and so I am also checking in with my parents at night. I cannot complain to them about my situation because they and she have it a lot worse. No one at my house is fighting for their life, even if it sometimes feels like it! We’re healthy, actually, and we have each other. It’s precious, what we have, even though….obviously I hate it and want things to go back to normal.
Yesterday, I was panicking. I was debating whether to take all of my sick and vacation time and just split childcare with Nick for the next month or two without the nagging stress of my job, or to not take any PTO and just barely do my job and maybe get fired and collect unemployment. My morning shift has not been productive whatsoever as I spend the whole time so relieved to be on a break from childcare that I do things like write these newsletters and then panic about how little time I have left until my shift is over, then panic about the ten tabs of news articles I have open.
I even had a flash of wanting to look for another job, which, of course, is bananas. I can’t even do the job I have! How am I going to find time to rewrite my resume, interview, get a job, then actually be able to perform it!!
We went to the beach last night, which I know is a luxury. It’s a little local beach, on the Chesapeake Bay, not the ocean. No one was there. It was beautiful and sad. We ate Taco Bell at a picnic table and I kept crashing my skateboard as I hit little patches of sand on the dinky boardwalk.
It’s tough to see my timeline play out as a harsh stratification between people with children and child-free people. It can feel like the child-free people are having themselves a little wellness retreat, an escape from the cult of busy-ness.
Meanwhile, those of us who chose our choice, our choice to reproduce, well, we are nnnnnnot doing so hot.
As far as work, what I am going to have to do, I think, is not try to split the days with Nick. We will instead take entire days to ourselves and I will use sick leave for the time I am caring for children. We’ll see!
Things I thought were possible in the near-term last week, like that flight to Ohio to see my sick sister, and to hold my friend’s new baby, no longer seem possible at all.
On Wednesday it was my friend’s first-born’s birthday and I scrolled through my phone for pictures of him and Desi together. I saw them side by side, age 2, glossy with sunscreen and sweat and pool water, working very seriously on Windex-colored sno-cones. How casually we were together in the sunshine! How good it was.
yr mate,
Evie
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