Better than the Last
Posted on January 1, 2009
Filed Under Anxiety, Blogroll, career, debt, kids, marriage, milestones, parenting, resolutions, suburban joys | 10 Comments
The first day of the year and it’s the coldest day we’ve had to endure since we moved up North three years ago. I suppose it’s best to get the worst out of the way ahead of time. Now the remaining 364 days will feel superior to this one. There’s a foot of new snow but it’s too damn cold to enjoy it and the vacuum cleaner broke so I’m bound to go completely insane with two children, one inherently messy adult male and two pets roaming around the confines of the home making crumbs, shedding hairs and rubbing cat litter on the back of the sofa.
We have one car that’s a champion in the snow but mice have crawled up inside the dashboard and nested in the airbag system. My warning light has been illuminated as reminder that when I fishtail and throw a 360 on slick, icy roads, I’m SOL save for a rodent family that might shoot out the steering wheel to cushion the impact. Considering the size, weight and non-absorbent make-up of the average mouse, I’ve decided to mostly stay home even though the lack of cleaning apparatus and chill of strained relations makes me want to crawl out of my itchy, winter-dry skin and flee to Florida where I hear it’s 80 and humid and there’s no such thing as chapped lips.
I suppose in this confinement, I should continue the job search I began a few days before the X-mas break wherein I write and re-write cover letters and resumes in order to send on-line responses to job listings in which I am only vaguely interested, those that appear on Monster and Craig’s List, knowing all the while that my ten years as a Landscape Designer don’t translate into value as a paralegal or administrative assistant or pharmaceutical representative but there’s always hope that some firm will see that the individual who ran her own company, wrote for a newspaper and also did time in the accounts department in an advertising firm, can and will learn this office stuff quickly and, in the interim, can probably manage the phones and tend to the ailing tropical plants suffering for light beneath the fluorescents.
I make it sound sort of optional, this employment thing but really it’s dire. In the last days of ‘08 we learned that MBH’s company would no longer be covering health insurance for dependents. So we have the expense of three on our plate in the New Year which makes for leaner times in our already skinny lives. And then there’s the latest confession – that neither of us can take one more day in the house together as a couple; working, sleeping, eating, pretending. And so we’re trying to find a way to swing rent. Some way to give ourselves some breathing room. It may, in the end, save us. Or it just may allow us to sever things in a civil manner. Either way, we see the expense as non-optional.
In order to clear the way for this added financial hit, I cancel newspaper subscriptions, I dial back the minutes on the cell phone, I cancel cable and stare meaningfully at the high-speed internet access bill wondering if we can survive on a dial-up. Wondering if the dial-up option still exists? We are wearing long underwear and turning down the thermostats. The dog shivers in her dog bed. The kids play hours of Wii and we let them, because school’s out and the wind blows negative temperatures and it’s free and we ignore their computer game dependence because their bug eyed attention to Madden ‘09 somehow assuages our guilt.
We have yet to break the news to the kids, this separation, which will confuse and disturb them even more than it does us (if that’s possible). And then there is the news to share that we are taking a leave of absence from the Country Club which really doesn’t affect their Winter lives but will completely rock their summer-time existence. I keep reminding myself that there are worse things to suffer than no swim team or tennis or golf but I feel really, really badly about this one. Possibly because we gaveth and now we taketh away. It’s one thing not to know what your missing, it’s another to miss something you once really, really enjoyed. They have friends there. They have known the sweet laze of sultry afternoons spent licking watermelon drips from their sticky arms and jumping in the chill pool to rinse their skin clean. They have known the smell of fresh mown grass on the fairway. They have known the distinct sound of tennis balls bouncing on a clay court. They have learned how to drag the brush and groom the court after play without filling their tennis shoes with clay granules. They have dressed in a sun dress and sandals and little boy khakis with a starched button-down to attend the awards ceremony at summer’s end where they receive recognition for sportsmanship and effort and achievement. They have known what it feels like to belong to this safe place, a place of well-to-do families and blue skies and a snack bar. I feel sad about a lot of things, but mostly I feel sad that I can’t continue to give them the things they have come to know as normal.
So here’s hoping that somehow, some of the next 364 days will find a way to be truly better than this one. Less uncertain and bleak and fearful and nostalgic. And here’s hoping your ‘09 is a good one, better than the last, even if your last wasn’t all that bad, because who doesn’t deserve even better?
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