Down Time

My husband started his new job yesterday. Remember when I told you that I could tell you later why he bought that new car? No? Well, we've had an on again off again sports car in the garage over our 22 years of wedded bliss. For quite a while now a rickety old 98 Civic with cool wheels and tight suspension had to "pass" as a sports car. And for quite a while now my husband has worked an awful, awful job that then morphed into a worse job with a ton of travel and crazy expectations of being able to drop life on a days notice and fly to Timbuktu. He liked it well enough, but I hated it.

So I said "if you take that nice quiet desk job close to home, you can get a sports car". OK, I was way more manipulative than that. There was a good amount of whining involved. And begging. I don't think it ever came to threatening, but I thought about it! And good father-husband-partner that he is, he did it! He loves his new car. that wicked machine scares me silly and I refuse to ever drive it. But he now works four miles from home. He has WEEKENDS off! And there is an actual END time to the day. We think that the days of unfair working conditions are illegal in this country.....not in upper management with big companies; they expect you to give yourself heart and soul to the job. The career. Whatever.

For the first time in over three years, we may expect to have a tidy, organized family life. At least sometimes.

It makes me realize how much our big teenage boys, all three of them, need to have a stable home life to be able to thrive. It's really important. Recently it's taken a bit of wrangling to make that happen. I've got a great flexible job, but it's one of those jobs that flows like spilled milk into every single nook and cranny of life. It keeps me slightly distracted from my kids, something I'm really trying to control this church year. My own children need me to notice what's going on for them, too.

The boys need to have a calm house that has food and heat and clean clothes. Those basics are actually important. And they need me to be calm, they need to be able to count on peace and quiet and not chaos; most of the time anyway. They need their father to be around, and available and all "man-like" so they can watch him and learn how to be "man-like". They need to learn how to change the oil and check the tires. Yes, I'm a feminist, but I am not going to teach them to do this. I taught the oldest to drive a clutch, that's my contribution. And heaven knows they need him to help them with MATH!! Thank god that I don't have to do that, our tutoring bills would be huge.

And now, that good man-good husband-good father will be around, and on a schedule we can count on. And he can teach them how to wax a sports car, too. It's a very good thing.

Thanks, babe. You rock.