There Comes a Time

4:30pm. A. is wondering at this very moment, when I will be coming to scoop her up from her preschool day.

I'm going to go old school though--this is going to be a random, unwieldy, poorly written post simply because I could care less about whether anyone sticks around long enough to get past the first sentence. I just have to write, for me. S.O. has been gone the whole week. This is his second week in the Southern part of this Southern state, being the assistant for his boss on a "big" trial. They are up against the federal gov't. But enough about that. In his absence I have been trying my best.

I don't know where to start. I have to take the Christmas tree and the decorations to our storage space before it gets dark. Take an application to a local church to sign up A. for their summer program, an application that I should have turned in weeks ago. I can't find the application so I guess that's the first step. I feel like my job is turning into kudzu, somehow everywhere I look there are piles of books and binders and papers and unopened mail and applications and notebooks. I stood Bakhtin up this Wednesday and instead of spending time with him, I bitched to a colleague about work issues. I feel incapable of gaining even a semblance of control over the smallest details of my life. It makes me sad, really. I don't want to be constantly thinking about my job when I'm at home with my daughter. And yet it seems every moment with her is tainted with whether or not I can squeeze in a little bit of work. Can I check an email while she puts on her pyjamas. If I get her to bed a little earlier tonight can I get organized for tomorrow. If we wake up a little earlier, can I get this material ready for that meeting or maybe find time to do some kind of reading.

I feel inadequate as scholar, inadequate as a mother. An hour ago I called my husband's secretary to see if she might be able to pick A. up from preschool so that I could somehow begin to get my head on straight--meaning, a plan for how to get a week's worth of work done by Monday. Yes, she had offered to help me out this week with A. since S.O. is gone, but who am I to ask her for her help when she has three kids at home herself, works full time just like I do, and takes college classes toward a paralegal degree? I feel like I need a sign that I am doing something right. That all of this struggle means something to someone. But asking for such a sign just makes me feel like a spoiled brat. It's the depression that comes right before I feel like giving up. Why keep trying when all evidence points to the futility of trying to be a good mother, a good wife, a writer, and an academic?

And to add insult to injury, I see that my last post was just as pitiful. Just for the record: there have been good things that have happened in between this month and last month. I just didn't make the time to write about them.