Flashback - Perpetual Days Off

This is one of those rare days when I feel like I did oh those six years ago when I was a stay at home mom with little pudgy toddler boys, a lot of coffee, and vague ideas about my life, along with panic attacks about my checking account, my lack of daily adult conversation and a constant desire to be left alone just long enough for a freakin' cup of coffee kids. One. Cup. Of. Coffee.... that I don't have to drink hiding in the bathroom.

Today, the boys, who are now snarky sarcastic boys in between big boys and tweeners, are home with me, while Husbear goes to work.

Just like the old days! Only the boys are mostly ignoring me because they are nine and mom is boring.

I must have had post-traumatic-SAHM'dom because last night, as I was staying up later because I don't have to work today, Husbear made some comments like 'oh it must be nice to not have to work in the morning...'  to which I pointed out that I actually took a day off work, that it wasn't, you know, a permanent state, because that would be unemployment, and that would kinda suck. I like my income. To which he said 'Yeah but you get a bajillion days off, and summer' to which I said, 'dude, whatever, it's not vacation if your entire summer is managing kids and not hanging out at a lakehouse somewhere.' And he was secretly judgy thinking, 'but you put them in summer camp' and in my mind I yelled back 'not every day, and you said you'd paint our bedroom and didn't and I had to much not-fun stuff to do'  and then we had an entirely separate argument inside my head, and I totally won that one. 

The other conversation kinda ended because he had to go to sleep and I was really focused on the imaginary conversation in my head.




The problem is really how convenient everything was when I was a SAHM and we only had to worry about money, not time. I.e., we had a lot less money, which didn't go very far, but Husbear never had to take time off work for appointments, never had to cook dinner and he never had to do groceries. I had time to make Tater Tot Casserole, work out, take the then-pudgy-toddlers on walks and outside, and do all the errands. I also had time, glorious happy time, to write. Though, if I remember correctly, most of my writing centered on not having time and a lot of whines about my future because SAHM isn't generally a life-time occupation anymore. 

Now that I work, time is gone, but two income living does give a sense of security and a reason to get out of yoga pants, because honestly, without a reason, why would anyone wear anything else?

Every now and again though, I miss the luxury of time. The luxury of yoga pants on a fall morning with coffee, writing, because that's what my day has in store. The peace of being alone with words on a page. The comfort of keys under my fingertips, the joy that typing non-stop for pages at a time brings. I miss all that. 

Now, I stay up past my bedtime writing, which tends to give my writing a kind of delirious, wacked out loopiness from my brain not being able to function on all cylinders... but still, it's better than not. 

Oh, time.