I hate Labor Day. Labor Day is the opposite holiday for teachers. For us, we are forced to work, forced to be nervous and overwhelmed. It was this weekend, in 2013, that I realized how much I dread when I have to return to work.
Don't get me wrong. I absolutely love teaching. I teach kindergarten, and I have lots of fun all day long with my students. It is this reason that I dread going back. I LOVE my job so much, that sometimes I can be consumed with it, and that's why I get anxious each and every Labor Day weekend.
Each summer, I enjoy the non-scheduled days that I spend with my 2 children, who are now 11 and 9. They are still at an age where they want to hang out with me, and we spend a lot of time together. This summer, I even took them on a 4 day beach vacation, with just me. It's nice to have the whole summer off where I can do that (my husband doesn't have that luxury, and plus he's not a big beach person). So, I spend a lot of time with my children. I know they will be getting older, getting summer jobs, getting boyfriends and girlfriends, so this time I can be with them like this is limited. I love spending time with my two children.
But once I start work in the Fall, I become a basket case. I am putting 100% in my work, come home and try to give my children and husband 100%, but I'm not sure that happens all the time.
Today, I had a huge migraine and had to sleep most of the afternoon. Why? Probably because I'm over thinking that I need to go back to work.
After I slept off my headache, I was feeling groggy. I couldn't believe it was already 3:00. I had left the vacuum cleaner in the middle of the living room earlier, and promised myself that I would finish cleaning all of downstairs once my headache went away. But really, I wanted my husband to finish it, and surprise me. The vacuum cleaner was still there, and when I walked into the kitchen, I saw that the breakfast dishes AND lunch dishes were all over the counter, and food was still out. Not only was the vacuum left and untouched, but the kitchen got even messier since my nap. I started to clean up, noisily, so wherever my husband was, he would come in.
Let me make myself clear here. I am a kindergarten teacher, and patience is one of my strongest characteristics. But for some reason that was out of my hands, I was really losing my cool and patience with this messy house and lack of help.
My husband was on the porch, reading. That made me even more mad.
I waited for him to come in. "Are you feeling better?" he asked, I think he asked this sweetly, but I don't remember.
"No, I still feel groggy and nauseous. But I need to clean this house, and you're not stepping up and helping."
Whoa. That set some crazy out of me, and onto him.
"I was going to clean this up later."
It was too late. I was cleaning up, folding laundry, then walking to the vacuum that I kept forgetting about. Then I had tears in my eyes.
"We have to get this house cleaned up. I start work next week, and I do everything. I get the kids ready for school. I go to work all day too, you know. Then I come home from work, make dinner, drive the kids to all their activities, make sure their homework is all done, and then you come home around 7:00, you sit on that couch, eat dinner, and fall asleep. Do you know that sometimes I don't even sit down all day until it's almost 9:00, when the kids are finally in bed?"
Then my husband says something to me that makes me fume: "You do it to yourself. You don't need to bring your work home with you. You don't need to sign the kids up for all these activities. You do it to yourself."
That made me mad.
Of course, I need to bring my work home with me because I love teaching and that's what a good teacher does. Of course my daughter is on a swim team, because it's the 4th sport she's tried, and it's the only one she truly likes and she loves it, and of course I will drive her to the pool 3 times a week. Of course my son will play soccer again, because it's the only sport he likes playing too, so I will go 2 times a week to watch him. My daughter also wants to try volleyball, and there was a kid class at our local community center- of course I signed her up. I am a good mom, and that's what good moms do. We expose our children to lots of activities to make them well-rounded. And these were activities they liked, so I wasn't dragging them there.
So, here we were. Fighting. And maybe we fight once or twice a year.
I cried today, in front of him, because I need help. I know once work starts for me again, I can not be that balanced wife, balanced mother that I am in the summer months. I don't think it's fair that both of us works, and we both work hard at our jobs, but why does everything fall on me? I realize he doesn't get home until later, and I know that I am responsible for driving the kids to their activities, and for making dinner. But, I come home tired too. I don't have luxury of sitting down until the kitchen is cleaned, chores are finished, and kids are all in bed. If I were a stay-at-home mom, I wouldn't be complaining. But both of us work, and I feel like I'm doing so much.
Labor Day weekend is hard for me. The change of schedule is hardest. I have anxiety tonight, because I don't know if I have it in me to do this balancing act, yet again, another year. How does once achieve balance? Is there such a thing?
Is there some secrets, some tips that will enlighten me this year? Can I make another year work, where I am working full-time, and having to work full-time at home? Balancing life, husband, work, friends, health, a household- how does a woman do it all?
This will be my year journey. I plan on researching, talking with others, and finding what works with them. Finding balance seems to be every woman's conquest- we are always trying to strive to find just the right enough. Enough work/ enough family time. In all the years I have been a mom, I only found balance 2 years, and that's when I was able to teach part-time in a district I used to work for, before we moved to the East coast. I also want to make it clear that when I was a stay-at-home mom for one year, I don't know if I had balance that year either. I needed work, because I missed teaching. I hated that I wrote down "stay-at-home mom" as my job on paperwork...wasn't I more? So now that I am teaching full-time, it's too much job. Never enough balance. It's like a see-saw; trying to always find enough so life is calm and still like that see-saw.
Today I realized that I need balance. As I cried in front of my husband, trying to clean and "nest" before work really starts next week, I realized that I'm afraid to go back to work, not because I dislike it, but because I give myself too much at work, and not enough at home with my family. Maybe I'm wrong, and my kids and husband and friends would differ. But that's how I feel. The see-saw is definitely wobbling.
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