(no subject)
Once a month I wake, sometimes before the sun, and now that it's May, after the sun and I go to a too-early meeting where they serve mediocre breakfast burritos and awful pastries, that I am never the less thankful for and enjoy as a second breakfast. This morning it was "share your story" morning, again. And after I spoke for less than a single minute, and listened to people talk on and on, I realized what a minority I am in as someone who doesn't like to talk on and on, or much at all, really.
My belly has reached the point where my belly button is flat and after a little while in my office chair, the pain in it's lower half was unbearable so I stood at the fax machine and rocked over it, watching the little lines moving as the machine attempted to send.
I meet with three people through the day and each of them cries. I pass tissues and look at them. Not sympathetically. Just. Like. I don't know what to tell you. I don't know how to help you. I don't belong here.
I go back to my desk and get frustrated by the circles we run in. Back and forth emails. Fluorescent lights. The pain moves into my head. I want to lay it or bang it on the desk in front of me. Against the flimsy cubicle walls. I don't know if I ever really believed I'd work in a cubicle. I text my mom, again, about not trusting the babysitter with the baby in me. Not sure if I trust her with the toddler I leave her with. I get home and the boy is disappointed. She didn't take him to the park. She even told him I wouldn't do it, and I did. But we went to the wrong park and he's still disappointed.
His disappointment has been more manageable lately. I have a list of alternatives. I let him watch youtube videos. Rock Lobster, Home, Planet Claire, Pocket Calculator, Safety Dance. He spreads his legs far apart and walks wide "smoo smoo smoo smoo." And then he requests Rock Lobster again, and asks me, every time, "what is a bikini whale?"
I don't want to keep working. But part of me thinks that that is an idea put upon me by male dominance. By my husband who puts his work before mine, absolutely always.
I drive to work in the early morning. 15 of the 30 minutes I am alone all week. I wonder what happened to any dreams or aspirations I had. If they've just changed and that's okay, or if I abandoned them to his. I don't think about it often. Barely ever. But when I do it hurts tremendously. It makes me want to figure out what it is I lost and find it ASAP. But when? I write this while feeding the boy smoothie. The result of a never-ending push for me to eat more vegetables, criticism for craving banana cream pie. Green mustaches. We wash his hands. I clean up.
I clean up again.
My belly has reached the point where my belly button is flat and after a little while in my office chair, the pain in it's lower half was unbearable so I stood at the fax machine and rocked over it, watching the little lines moving as the machine attempted to send.
I meet with three people through the day and each of them cries. I pass tissues and look at them. Not sympathetically. Just. Like. I don't know what to tell you. I don't know how to help you. I don't belong here.
I go back to my desk and get frustrated by the circles we run in. Back and forth emails. Fluorescent lights. The pain moves into my head. I want to lay it or bang it on the desk in front of me. Against the flimsy cubicle walls. I don't know if I ever really believed I'd work in a cubicle. I text my mom, again, about not trusting the babysitter with the baby in me. Not sure if I trust her with the toddler I leave her with. I get home and the boy is disappointed. She didn't take him to the park. She even told him I wouldn't do it, and I did. But we went to the wrong park and he's still disappointed.
His disappointment has been more manageable lately. I have a list of alternatives. I let him watch youtube videos. Rock Lobster, Home, Planet Claire, Pocket Calculator, Safety Dance. He spreads his legs far apart and walks wide "smoo smoo smoo smoo." And then he requests Rock Lobster again, and asks me, every time, "what is a bikini whale?"
I don't want to keep working. But part of me thinks that that is an idea put upon me by male dominance. By my husband who puts his work before mine, absolutely always.
I drive to work in the early morning. 15 of the 30 minutes I am alone all week. I wonder what happened to any dreams or aspirations I had. If they've just changed and that's okay, or if I abandoned them to his. I don't think about it often. Barely ever. But when I do it hurts tremendously. It makes me want to figure out what it is I lost and find it ASAP. But when? I write this while feeding the boy smoothie. The result of a never-ending push for me to eat more vegetables, criticism for craving banana cream pie. Green mustaches. We wash his hands. I clean up.
I clean up again.