Give and Take

For almost 4 years now, I have been riding a wave of utter spoilation.

I have done what I needed to do in order to make it through school, through the bar exam, and through the early days of full-time lawyerdom while trusting that the rest of life would work out around me.

This was because of one thing:  My Beloved.  He has cooked, he has coordinated, he has covered sick days, snow days, busy days.

This past week, I did without him entirely.  I was tired.  I was stretched (a snow day? really?  THIS week?).  But you know what?  I did it.  I met all my obligations, I took care of the girls and the house completely.  Hell, even the cats were fed twice a day.  I even cleaned out their litter box.

It’s a good thing.

Because it appears my free ride is over.

Beloved was able to take on all of the slack I let go during high stress times because we long ago decided I would go to school; then he would go to school.

Now, he’s in school.

Because he’s in a low-residency program, he was (still is) only gone for 12 days (my heart couldn’t take more, I don’t think).  But when he comes home, he has work to do.

And it’s not yucky ewie work.  It’s what he loves.  What his personal circumstances have required him to put off and put off and put off.

He isn’t putting it off anymore.

It is time for my Beloved to do the things that were put on the back burner twenty three years ago.   Things he is supposed to do.

Wow.

Has he deserved this, or what?

So yeah, I’ll need to cook more.  And I’ll need to take the driver’s seat on school projects more.   Not only can I do it, but I could do more, if I had to.  I can do it all – just like he could (and did).

I think it’s likely that we’ll have some growing pains.  There will be times my work is pulling me to stay in the office for later than we’d planned; and there will be times that his deadlines hit at the same time as a filing deadline for me.  But I think we have the foundation that we need.  I think we respect each other, and each other’s work, and we can make it work.

It helps that we also have OLD kids, who can do things and go places and work stuff out without the same intense parental supervision that was required of them in their younger years.   (I realized today that J is almost 10.  Almost 10.  This means that I almost have ZERO kids in single digits.  They are BOTH old.  J is already drooling over which cell phone she’ll get, and wondering what activities she’ll do in high school.  E is running a newspaper, texts like a pro (has yet to go over our limit), and went to a restaurant with JUST her friends for lunch on the snow day.  They had to figure a TIP, and to split the bill!!  By themselves!!)

So now he should come home so we can work it all out.

I still miss him.