It take’s a lot out of me!

Something as simply going to the store can be treacherous. It all seems fine when we get into whichever vehicle we decide we should take, his or mine. Of course, it’s generally his truck because my car immediately causes him discomfort. After 5 minutes he is generally squirming in his seat like a toddler that needs to pee. Yet, he won’t complain until the 5th or 6th time that I ask (pry) what is wrong out of him. It is generally, “I hate your car its so uncomfortable.” Well, I hate it too. I had a perfectly good suburban that was loaded with all the great features like it cared about me. I could start it up and it always wanted to make me comfortable, it remembered how I like to sit, where my mirrors were best suited to protect me, and the best part… It could tell if it was too hot or cold outside and cool the SUV or warm the seats for MY comfort. But those days are gone. Why? Well WE needed a boat and the payment didn’t coincide with keeping my SUV so I downsized to a tiny ass Malibu that doesn’t even have room for my multitude of CD’s. Keep in mind, I need my CD’s. I love to sing in the car… oh yeah it had a Bose sound system too. I miss that,  I really miss that.  UGH …

So, we get to where we are going this morning and I mention, since we are by ourselves which never happens, I’m hungry. What does he do? Drives past a perfectly fine cracker barrel. I was sad again this morning. I really wanted my standard order of ole’ timers with eggs sunny side up, bacon, hash brown casserole, and biscuits and gravy. But more than that, I wanted to be alone just us together and a restaurant full of people we didn’t know.

I just don’t know how to get on the same page. It’s like I’m reading a romance novel and he’s reading One Fish, Two Fish. Lord help me make it through this realization!

Welcome to my midlife realization (it’s no crisis)!

I had an AH-HA moment yesterday. I was surprised it really took that long to get to that point. I have been a working mom for about 15 years. I know that doesn’t seem like a long time, but it’s been a long road. When you factor in that it hasn’t just been work and home. It was fulltime work monday thru friday, full-time school monday thru friday, three kids under 10, and a husband for the first 2 years. Then, it was work fulltime with overtime, a move to another state, starting over in a new job, making new friends, and a husband. ( I didn’t get a new husband, but he’s been a handful to maintain). Then, in years 5-6 it was work fulltime, back to school for a degree full-time, a husband, and a pregnancy. Had the baby on a Friday and went back to school on Tuesday.

At the time, I thought it was determination. Sitting on my thinking chair this morning, preparing to write my first blog ever, I realized it was stupidity.  I had massively high blood pressure that was uncontrolled and could have had a seizure at anytime. Thankfully, I was attending a nursing school transitioning from LPN or LVN to RN. So, I was surrounded by nursing instructors and future nurses. Which, reflecting now is even more scary. Those nurses were no where capable of caring for me if something had happened. They would have freaked out! But, I’m sure it would have made an excellent story.

Then came the move back to Florida ( which we instantly regretted), a new job, a mother-in-law with Alzheimer’s, a grand baby, and the bachelor’s degree program. Again, fulltime school, work, kids, mother-in-law, drama, and a husband… My family all joked that I was going to get pregnant because that seemed to be how I roll. I did not find that funny one bit. I just said my son was having the baby this time.

Somewhere in all that mess, we moved back to Georgia. It was much-needed. I took a management position and that is when it all went to HELL. My work-life became unbalanced like a see-saw with a kindergartener on one side and a high school kid on the other. My life was starting to look like a loony tunes episode.  There was me sitting unsuspectingly on the see-saw and a giant boulder was about to fall off a cliff and launch me into the atmosphere. Yep, zero gravity, no air and a hell of a lot of darkness.