survival of week one

I need to focus on what's positive, so I'm keeping track of accomplishments: I did get through the week. How did I do it? As one friend reminded me, just like with parenting: You Just Do. People without kids always say they can't imagine (and it's true, they really can't) being able to get up several times a night, night after night, with a new baby. But you don't have a choice (unless you are capable of choosing cruelty or neglect), so you just do. You suck up the discomfort, which becomes torture, and sometimes hysteria or temporary insanity. The hysteria and insanity is the only pressure-valve you've got, sometimes. Women who choose to have a child with no partner around to relieve them can't imagine how bad it can get. But mostly, we all get through it. Still, going through it with several kids just boggles my mind.

One of my new colleagues is a religious woman with five kids, ranging in age from 3 to 15. I'm not sure of her age, but she must be older than she looks, which is maximum 30. Her hair is always covered with a modest hat, and she always wears the same bulky maternity-style top. Maybe she's pregnant again; I haven't had the nerve to ask. Also, she only works part-time, and she's been on the phone with one of her sick kids much of the time she's at work, so there hasn't been much opportunity. Out of the five kids, four of them were home sick all week, and her mothering-by-remote was very tiring to witness. It may have been a tough week for me, but I can't even imagine how she made it through. There's a limit to the number of days a parent can be off work to care for each sick child per year, and she tells me she more than used up her limit in 2004. Now she starts again.

Somewhat sisysphusian, this work life. Although Sisyphus never got the paycheck at the end of the month. And that makes all the difference. Sort of. Sigh.

I whine a lot about the minor challenges I face, but my life has not so far included what I consider the really difficult stuff: nursing of the terminally ill, and death of loved ones; catastrophic issues in the health or well-being of my child; and, of course, tsunamis. When so many people in the world are being forced to cope with overwhelming disaster and trauma, how do I dare to give my tiny discomforts any indulgence? How can I be so self-centered as to mope around depressed because I have only two days off before I go back to the grind of a long day? It's pathetic.

Life is full of challenges, and we never know which one's on its way down the pipeline. Whatever I'm dealing with now may seem like paradise compared to what comes next. I want to keep that in mind. It might improve my attitude.