Home Equals Sweat...pants
Home equals sweat…pants
I didn’t write an article last week. I was too darned tired. I substituted at work last week as a kindergarten teacher and grade school French teacher for about half the time I used to work and I was in a coma by the time I got home.
It wasn’t just the hours, although I haven’t had to stand on my feet all day without a rest for months. It was matching my clothes. It was no snacks, no nap. It was the incredible pressure of Being on Time. My whole life has been a series of resolutions and angry people waiting for me. I KNOW I’m passive-aggressive, controlling, selfish—the label list is endless for the chronically time challenged—but I never can talk myself into doing what I’m supposed to do doing until it’s too late to finish on time and then, once I’ve started, I hate to stop. Plus, I hate to wait. I HAVE SUCH A HARD TIME BEING ON TIME.
So last week, it was back to being a grown-up for a few hours a day. I loved being with my old friends, I LOVE substitute teaching. It’s like being a grandma—you come, you spoil ‘em, you go home.
But working. My gosh, what a concept! How do people do that? It’s enough, I think, to just be able to take care of ourselves. NOW I think that.
I used to think I’d die if I never got a chance to have a job. I’ve been somebody’s mommy since I was 19. I graduated from college at the ripe old age of 48 after, by actually count, attending college classes for 20 years. That’s 20 years that I was actually taking at least one class a semester to make sure their Part-time Patsy was attending those classes in her major and moving on. I, too, wand my little Mormon children to get an education but I would have at least have liked to have taken an art class.
I’ve volunteered my brains out. My stomach just churns whenever I see a list of telephone numbers to call and remind people to bring something, do something, or donate something. I’ve served ham and dinner rolls and mixed salad with ranch dressing to literally thousands of people. (Once I had 20 hams and forgot to turn on the ovens in the kitchen so when 6 o’clock came, we had to fry individual pieces.) I’ve thrown away millions of paper plates, swept gym floors hundreds of times. I know every possibly combination of Sam’s Club hors d’oerves.
In other words, I was a typical woman who’s involved. And I’ve never really had to work—which makes me something of a freak in this day and age.
For a while there, though, I was a part-time teacher and frequent substitute. Working is different than volunteering because: 1) mainly, you’re not just doing someone a favor, 2) they can fire you, 3) getting a salary means a higher level of expectation. Work generally means you can just wander off when the mood strikes without retribution. Volunteers can have sick kids and bad hair days because your “employer” is usually so desperate for free labor that they’ll put up with anything. Otherwise, they’d be paying someone.
I miss the discipline of working, but they didn’t have to the snacks I normally like—organic peanut butter on whole wheat for example. And, the nap time thing is awful. I was really sleepy that last day and felt I would have been much more effective if we could have started at 10 instead of 8. But I was too tired to call.
After my little stint last week, I remember how lucky I am that I can be home. Occasionally I get up and complain to my husband that I don’t have anything to do and he says he can think of a bunch of stuff, like mowing the grass and washing the car and paying the bills. But my doing “guy jobs” will only get us both in trouble.
Now I can go back to ignoring him and start to remember the reasons I, myself, like to be home: keeping the house as if people lived here instead of goats; reading stuff with hard words; talking to my friends who are working and reminding them that there will be a life after they retire. Going to Sales. Taking trips to California to see my new grandbaby. It’s good, good, good to have your time be your own.
Anybody out there up for a quick drive to LA?
I didn’t write an article last week. I was too darned tired. I substituted at work last week as a kindergarten teacher and grade school French teacher for about half the time I used to work and I was in a coma by the time I got home.
It wasn’t just the hours, although I haven’t had to stand on my feet all day without a rest for months. It was matching my clothes. It was no snacks, no nap. It was the incredible pressure of Being on Time. My whole life has been a series of resolutions and angry people waiting for me. I KNOW I’m passive-aggressive, controlling, selfish—the label list is endless for the chronically time challenged—but I never can talk myself into doing what I’m supposed to do doing until it’s too late to finish on time and then, once I’ve started, I hate to stop. Plus, I hate to wait. I HAVE SUCH A HARD TIME BEING ON TIME.
So last week, it was back to being a grown-up for a few hours a day. I loved being with my old friends, I LOVE substitute teaching. It’s like being a grandma—you come, you spoil ‘em, you go home.
But working. My gosh, what a concept! How do people do that? It’s enough, I think, to just be able to take care of ourselves. NOW I think that.
I used to think I’d die if I never got a chance to have a job. I’ve been somebody’s mommy since I was 19. I graduated from college at the ripe old age of 48 after, by actually count, attending college classes for 20 years. That’s 20 years that I was actually taking at least one class a semester to make sure their Part-time Patsy was attending those classes in her major and moving on. I, too, wand my little Mormon children to get an education but I would have at least have liked to have taken an art class.
I’ve volunteered my brains out. My stomach just churns whenever I see a list of telephone numbers to call and remind people to bring something, do something, or donate something. I’ve served ham and dinner rolls and mixed salad with ranch dressing to literally thousands of people. (Once I had 20 hams and forgot to turn on the ovens in the kitchen so when 6 o’clock came, we had to fry individual pieces.) I’ve thrown away millions of paper plates, swept gym floors hundreds of times. I know every possibly combination of Sam’s Club hors d’oerves.
In other words, I was a typical woman who’s involved. And I’ve never really had to work—which makes me something of a freak in this day and age.
For a while there, though, I was a part-time teacher and frequent substitute. Working is different than volunteering because: 1) mainly, you’re not just doing someone a favor, 2) they can fire you, 3) getting a salary means a higher level of expectation. Work generally means you can just wander off when the mood strikes without retribution. Volunteers can have sick kids and bad hair days because your “employer” is usually so desperate for free labor that they’ll put up with anything. Otherwise, they’d be paying someone.
I miss the discipline of working, but they didn’t have to the snacks I normally like—organic peanut butter on whole wheat for example. And, the nap time thing is awful. I was really sleepy that last day and felt I would have been much more effective if we could have started at 10 instead of 8. But I was too tired to call.
After my little stint last week, I remember how lucky I am that I can be home. Occasionally I get up and complain to my husband that I don’t have anything to do and he says he can think of a bunch of stuff, like mowing the grass and washing the car and paying the bills. But my doing “guy jobs” will only get us both in trouble.
Now I can go back to ignoring him and start to remember the reasons I, myself, like to be home: keeping the house as if people lived here instead of goats; reading stuff with hard words; talking to my friends who are working and reminding them that there will be a life after they retire. Going to Sales. Taking trips to California to see my new grandbaby. It’s good, good, good to have your time be your own.
Anybody out there up for a quick drive to LA?
Comments