I am Lonely

I've been in a total funk, probably for the last two weeks.  I've been racking my brains to figure out what my problem is, and I don't want to just chalk it up to the fact that I haven't lost weight these last two weeks, either.  I'm not that shallow...right?  I should be able to take the ups and downs of this health/weight loss journey in stride--I'm a smart girl, and I know things like this are rarely easy, and require a lot of time, work, and commitment.  So I've been searching for some other reason, and I think I finally hit on it last night--it's a sentiment I've expressed many times before, but I hadn't realized that it applies right now.

I'm tired (that's a given--I have three kids).  Despite a cleaning schedule, I'm really behind on all my housework (also a given, considering that again, I have three kids).  I get stressed out when I'm tired and behind on my housework (that is to be expected).  These things have contributed to my less-than-stellar mood lately, but there's one thing that really puts it over the top for me, and I expressed it to Dan last night when he informed me that he would be doing work after the kids went to bed:

Dan:  "So, we have Modern Family on tonight?"
Me:  "No, it was on last night, but we didn't get a chance to watch it because you went for a run after the kids went to bed."
Dan:  "Right--I mean we're watching it tonight."
Me:  "Yes."
Dan:  "Okay, well, as soon as that's over, I'm going to get some work done."
Me (shoulders sagging, visible change in demeanor...followed by a long pause, and then blurting out the first thing that came to my mind):  "I AM LONELY!  It's really hard.  This poem...sucks?"

For those of you who don't get my So I Married An Axe Murderer reference, here's a crappy video so that you can fully appreciate my cadence (and desperation).

I am lonely.  There it is.  I masked the seriousness of the feeling with a quote from one of our favorite movies, but I am lonely.  It feels more potent the last two weeks (maybe longer) than it has in the recent past, because Dan went out of town on a trip that last year, we were able to take together--a mini-vacation away from the kids that did wonders for me.  I slept in, sat in a hotel room and read books on my Kindle while Dan was in meetings, and he and I had meals out without children interrupting us, and late-night runs for ice cream like we used to.  It was glorious, and refreshing.  Not to mention the actual road trip--I love road trips!  Nothing better than singing along with the radio, sitting next to my best friend, talking or not talking for hours on end.  It worked out great last year because Dan's business trip coincided with Abby's spring break, so I could leave the kids with my parents for a few days and not worry about burdening anyone with our crazy daily school schedule.  This year, we didn't get so lucky--his trip was the week after her spring break, and also started on Easter Sunday...totally poor planning on both fronts.  So I stayed home with the kids (as I should have), but I couldn't help feeling sad about missing the time away with my husband--and missing out on that time to reconnect.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again--Dan and I have a difficult time balancing the demands of our jobs and our kids with our relationship to each other.  The constant presence of children totally affects our interaction with each other--it almost feels like a business relationship sometimes, because when we see each other, we're throwing out dates for doctor's appointments, school commitments, and the day's happenings over the din of three kids and us trying to make dinner.  Okay, not many businesses run that way, but you get what I mean.  We have a hard time finding time for us in this crazy, full life we've built together.  I know these problems are short-term, because our kids will only be young once, and when they're out of the house and Dan's retired, we'll have nothing but time for each other.  I get that.  It doesn't make my day-to-day any easier right now, though.

So we have no time for each other when the kids are around--that's just the practicalities of parental life, and I'm okay with that.  What's hard for me is that after the kids go to bed, Dan often has another agenda that doesn't involve me.  He disappears for an hour every night to decompress from his day, right after we close the last of the kids' bedroom doors--it's like he has a timer set, because it's almost always an hour, down to the minute.  He uses that hour check his email, surf the internet...whatever, just chill.  I don't begrudge his need to decompress--goodness knows I need to as well, but...I hate that hour.  After spending 12 hours of my day in the company of id-driven children, with little adult interaction, guess what?  I am lonely.  It's really hard.  I just want to spend time with my husband.  Then inevitably, if the weather is nice, Dan wants to go for a run when he emerges from his hour-long me time--they don't do early morning PT in his current job like most military locations require, so that means he needs to find another time to work out.  He could get up early and do it then anyway, but the guy loves his snooze button--to the point where I beg him to please just not set the alarm for an unrealistic time because all it does is go off and wake the kids up, not him.  So he works out after the kids are in bed, and how can I not support his exercise time, even though guess what?  I am lonely.  If he's not exercising, he brings work home, and holes up in our bedroom while I veg out to HGTV--there's nothing more pathetic than watching an episode of House Hunters that you've already seen...but I do it, because it keeps me company.  I can't watch any of "our shows" because Dan isn't watching with me, so I have to save them for a night when he is free.  I get maybe two nights a week of actual time with my husband, which we spend catching up on the TV shows we've missed the other nights...and even on those nights, I'm still lonely.

yep, some days, I totally feel this way

This is the problem I've run into in the past--expecting my husband to fill all the voids that my lack-of-social-life provides.  He's just one guy, and although he's a great guy, he can't possibly be my only outlet--it's too much pressure for one person.  Very basically, I just need to get a life.  My feeling of loneliness is exacerbated by circumstances right now--it's the tail end of a long, dreary, stuck-inside winter (not much opportunity for mommy socializing when I'm alone in my house...); even though the weather is finally brightening up, my allergies have kicked in full force and I don't even want to think about going outside, much less actually go out; and I'm potty training Alex right now, which means long days stuck in the house, dragging a stubborn 2-year-old into the bathroom every few minutes.  I've lost entire days to the bathroom this week--it's mind-numbing, but at least the boy is getting the hang of it!  Potty training is one of my least favorite tasks of parenthood...  To keep from going out of my mind, I text my best friend in Boston countless times a day, and I call my mom at least once a day--and that's pretty much the extent of my social interaction, sadly.  Even Facebook doesn't provide me the interaction comfort it once did--I try not to spend too much time on there, since it's a massive time suck.  I had this feeling of extreme loneliness when Abby was a baby--I was home alone with her a lot while Dan was in law school or studying, and she didn't even know how to talk yet...I felt like I was going crazy, sometimes carrying on conversations with myself just to hear someone talking.  I held tons of resentment toward Dan, because he got to leave the house every day and chat with other adults.  When Abby was 8 months old, I'd had enough--I researched and put myself out there by joining a moms' group.  Best Decision of My Parenting Life, not kidding.  That group provided wonderful friends for myself and for Abby, and I discovered that I wasn't so alone in the world after all--and my resentment toward Dan melted away, because I wasn't expecting the poor guy to be my only friend in the world anymore.  That's a really tall order, and that's where I feel like I'm stuck right now.

Being a stay-at-home mom can be the loneliest job on the planet, even though it can also be rewarding and fulfilling.  Yes, I'm surrounded by children and clamor and craziness all day, but I'm navigating it mostly by myself, with no rational person with whom to step back and hash out the right course of action at any given point in the day.  It's just me, in my head all day, second-guessing myself and my parenting decisions.  It's hard to put yourself out there and meet other moms, because you run the risk of meeting moms who are cliquey and judgy...and trust me, they are out there.  I don't need that drama, but I do need to get a life, so I'm just going to have to go back out there, make friends, and hope for the best.

Mrs. Degree

I read an article yesterday that made me laugh--although it could have been written about me, if you didn't know me.  The article was about the return of the "Mrs. Degree," where women attend college solely to find a husband (no accredited degree required!).  Although the motivation for attending college has definitely changed since the 1950's, in that now most women actually go to get an education, apparently many women are still looking for that ring before graduation.  I clicked on the article mostly for procrastinating purposes, while avoiding starting dinner or cleaning, but a concept in it really got me--because even though I have joked about the Mrs. Degree before, I've never thought of it in these terms:  the Mrs. Degree exists because girls dream of finding a man to support them the rest of their lives, so that they don't have to work.

Dan and I got married when we were 23 years old--at the time, I felt kind of old to be getting married (ha ha--thanks for the skewed outlook, Mom and Dad...because they were both 21 when they got married!), but now I know that's pretty young to settle down compared to other women.  The average age of women getting married now is something like 26--I already had my first baby at 26!  I wasn't looking for a man in college (although, hey--who doesn't want to be loved by someone?)--I really, truly wanted to earn my degree in psychology and devote myself to meaningful work...and get married young.  When I think of my 20-year-old self, with all my hopes and plans and dreams, it makes me shake my head a little bit--I didn't know what I wanted, or at the very least, I didn't realize that the things I wanted were either mutually exclusive or somehow conflicting.  I wanted to graduate with my bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of Virginia, get a job in substance abuse prevention (maybe with a non-profit), make a difference in the lives of people who have been affected by addiction issues...oh, and get married, have babies, and be a stay-at-home mom.  Huh?  Clearly, I couldn't have both, and I didn't accomplish both.  If you had asked me when I was 22 years old, fresh out of college, if I went to college with no intention of using my degree, I would have laughed at you...  Looking for a job in 2002 gave me my first, fairly heavy dose of reality--even the jobs I thought I would be a shoe-in for in my field were out of my reach because no one was hiring, or folks with master's degrees were coming in and taking the entry-level positions.  I didn't have a master's degree, nor did I desire more schooling.  I also wanted to stay in Charlottesville for a few years, because it's my favorite place and I felt really at home there, so that limited my opportunities.  I did get offered a position at UVa in the psych department, but taking that job would have meant living well below the poverty level--I had an apartment and a car and bills to pay, so I had to find something else.  I ended up in a job that had nothing to do with psychology--although my boss was nuts, so I did spend lots and lots of time talking my co-workers off the ledge and attempting to navigate the emotional minefield that was working there.  Not quite what I envisioned doing with my expensive degree--but I always figured I would get a little wiggle room monetarily, and then go after my dreams.

I didn't want more school, but I did want to use my degree!

Dan asked me to marry him 1.5 years later (while I was still working at that crazy company), and I said yes--not thinking that by marrying him, I would be set for life and never have to work another day.  I always intended to pull my own weight--although I wanted my Mrs. Degree (let's call it my master's, shall we?  It surely has taken a lot of years of study and effort!), I didn't see it as a free ride through life.  I guess I didn't realize that the Mrs. Degree joke had a more sinister edge to it--I wasn't looking for a rich guy...just a good guy who makes me happy.  I spent a lot of time, hard work, and money on a really good degree from a really great school, and sometimes I still struggle with the fact that I didn't do/haven't done more with it.  Will there ever be a time to pursue those long-ago dreams?  Or have my dreams for my future shifted?  My mom, the inspiration for what a Good Housewife should be, was already out in the workforce after having completed nursing school when she got married--and she supported my dad while he completed the last year of his undergraduate degree.  She stopped working when my brother (the oldest in our family) was born, and went back to work (albeit, not as a nurse) when I (the youngest in our family) was in elementary school--she worked in my school, so that her hours would be compatible with being home as much as possible for her kids.  Her dreams and goals shifted after she had us kids, and I think she would say that she had a happy, fulfilling career--as a nurse, a wife, a mom, a teacher, and now a grandma!  I don't know where this life will lead me--when Alex is 5, will I suddenly want to get a master's in public health?  Will I want to stay at home baking cookies for the kids when they get home from school?  Will I want to get a part-time job at Hallmark again?  Will I fill my days with military spouse groups and volunteering?  Even though I'm not working right now, you'd better believe that Dan and I support each other--he earns the money, I raise our children and manage our household...it wouldn't work without both our important jobs, even though mine doesn't contribute to the bank accounts.  I don't know where my heart will lead me in a few years, but I sure am glad I got that Mrs. Degree to fall back on.  ;)

Meet the Housewife

My name is Jill, and I'm 32 years old.  I'm short, about 30 pounds overweight (thanks, kids...ha ha!), and I have blondish hair that never does what I want it to do.  I have a degree in psychology from the University of Virginia (one of my most favorite places in the world!), and I previously worked as an intern at a national non-profit, at a small environmental consulting firm, at Hewlett-Packard, and at Hallmark.  :)  My full-time job now is staying at home with my three outstanding kiddos--Abby, Jake, and Alex.  I'm married to Dan, a military JAG officer (aka, military lawyer), and we are working together to build a really great life.  Sounds like I've got it all together, right?

I read a lot of blogs about folks who knock my socks off with their crafts, their togetherness, their energy, their ability to get everything done and still have time for baking cookies...this will not be one of those blogs!  I strongly dislike crafting, I don't like to shop (especially for clothes!), I don't do much baking (pies are my forte/only thing I can bake, weirdly), I don't enjoy cooking in the slightest, I love to go out to eat (this goes along well with not cooking), I don't go to church, I'm liberal, and I'm kind of a mess on a daily basis.  :)

My husband tells me that I have an unfortunate habit of providing ridiculous amounts of detail when asked a simple question, like when I attempt to write an "About Me" blog.  :)  I just wrote a very detailed chronicle for this blog entry about my first 32 years of life, then deleted it and decided that bullets are the best way to go...trust me, I would have bored you to sleep (and may still...even with bullets!): 

• I grew up in a military family as the youngest of three kids, and my mom was the best stay-at-home mom who ever existed (still is!).
• I wanted to be a famous singer when I was little (okay, even now...but at least now, I don't harbor illusions that I'll be randomly discovered on the street and rocketed to stardom like I hoped I would be when I was 7 years old). 

Yep, I dressed up as Debbie Gibson in 4th grade...totally wanted to be her!

• I went to the University of Virginia, where I majored in psychology and wanted to focus my career after college on substance abuse issues.  I spent a lot of time volunteering with Mothers Against Drunk Driving after my brother was hit by a drunk driver when I was 15 years old--and I also worked at MADD's National office while I was in college.
• I met Dan, the guy who would eventually become my husband, when we were 15 years old in the same sophomore gym and English classes--we dated off and on for years (mostly off!), but have been best friends since day one.
• After college graduation, I got jobs that paid bills...not ones that utilized my passion and degree.  I figured there would be time for that later?
• Dan and I were married in July 2004, on one of the happiest days I've ever had--he had just returned from a year-long deployment in Iraq, and our wedding felt like a fairy tale come true for me after all the stops and starts our relationship endured, and after the really scary year of his deployment.  We spent our first year of married life in Colorado, where Dan was stationed at the time.

Our wedding day

• Our first child, a daughter we named Abby, was born in 2006, while Dan was in law school in Ohio.  I always wanted to be a mom, and am fortunate to have been able to stay at home since Abby was born--she's now 6 years old and an amazing little girl in first grade.  I discovered with her birth that being a mom is a lot more isolating than I ever would have imagined, especially with a hard-studying husband in law school, so I joined a moms' group and really found my niche as a parent...until we moved after Dan graduated in 2008.

We are parents!

• Our second child, a son we named Jake, was born in 2009--sweetest, most chill baby ever, which totally lulled us into a false sense of security because he is now the wildest, orneriest 3-year-old with the biggest heart...his saving grace that helps us forgive him for all his craziness!  We lived in Texas for 1.5 years, and even though I really didn't like it there (okay, that's an understatement--I hated it there), those sweet days with my happy baby and my super helpful big girl were really great ones.  We lived in Texas until Dan deployed for the second time to Iraq.

Our family of four

• During Dan's 2nd deployment, I gave birth to our 3rd child, a son we named Alex...one of the most difficult experiences of my life.  Alex was a surprise (only 17 months after Jake), and knowing that Dan was going to be deployed for the last three months of what was probably my last pregnancy, Alex's birth, and most of his first year of life broke my heart and threw me into a pretty dark place.  I moved to Virginia and lived at my parents' house with the kids for the duration of the deployment, which was a tremendous help--I couldn't have made it through that year without them.  Alex was also The Worst Baby in History--absolutely adorable, but constantly screaming!  Even my mother, the best mom and grandma ever, was totally at her wits end with that baby.  Thankfully, he has mostly outgrown the screaming, and is a very sweet, still adorable 2-year-old.

Family of Five, together on Daddy's R&R from Iraq

• The deployment was hard on everyone--watching our kids miss their Daddy was the worst feeling for me, even worse than feeling so lonely myself.  Dan missed out on a lot of bonding with our sons (Jake was only 14 months old when he deployed, and Dan didn't even meet Alex in person until Alex was 4 months old...and then didn't live with us full time again until Alex was almost 1), and Abby was old enough to really hurt over his absence.  Maintaining a marriage via Skype while living at my parents' house with a screaming, exhausting newborn was also quite difficult--Dan and I did the best we could, but it was just plain hard.  He came home after a year with no kids and no family responsibilities to a life with three needy kids and an equally needy wife...the adjustment for all of us was monumental (and still ongoing, 1.5 years after his return).
• We were very fortunate to get stationed in Virginia near both our families after Dan's deployment, in a job that won't deploy Dan and that has very family-friendly hours...hard to come by in the military.  That's where we are today, living on the military installation five minutes from Dan's office.

It's not lost on me that this was supposed to be an "About Me" post, and I eventually fell into describing life events and my kids...my role as a mom is my most cherished role, and clearly it defines me and makes it hard for me to distinguish who I am apart from my husband and kids and our family.  I had goals and dreams before embarking on this military life, and yes, one of those dreams was to be a stay-at-home mom...so I'm living my dream!  It just doesn't always feel that way when I find myself at a loss to describe who I am as a person, what I like to do in my non-existent free time (of which I will have tons more and need to find ways to fill it once all the kids are in school full-time in 3 short years...), and what I want for me out of my life.  I could rattle on and on about what I want for my husband and my kids, but it's much harder when I try to think about what I want for me--the dilemma of most moms, I think.  So my current existential crisis that spurred my creation of The Good Housewife Project is hardly unique to me, nor is it catastrophic...it's just where I am right now in what has been an extraordinarily blessed life.

Starting the Project

I'm a pretty bad housewife--let's just get that out of the way right now.  I'd like to say that before I had kids, I rocked it on the whole cooking/cleaning/making-some-effort-to-appear-put-together front, but that wouldn't be true, either.  I view myself as a liberal feminist, and I've never attempted to be a 1950's housewife (or a carbon copy of my amazing housewife mother)...or even a mid-2000's housewife (whatever that woman looked like--I don't really know, but she sure wasn't me).  Three kids later, it's 2012, and I'm no closer to knowing what goes into being a good housewife/stay-at-home mom/wife in general.

My neighbor told me months ago that she traded in her old Calphalon cookware set for a brand new one, according to their lifetime warranty.  It took me two months to gather my own set up, put them all in a plastic bag (which ripped on the way to the car...it was just that kind of day today), and take them to the store to trade mine in.  The customer service lady took my 11-piece set, a wedding present that has lived through 8 years of marriage, 4 moves (plus over a year in storage!), and my husband's knack for burning his stir fry, and I walked out of the store with a brand-new 12-piece set.

 
It sat in the box on my kitchen floor tonight until I decided to put off going to bed by googling "Calphalon Use and Care Instructions."  I don't think I did this with my first set 8 years ago, but I want to get off to a good start with this shiny new one--so I pulled them all out of the box, soaked them all in warm soapy water, and washed each piece with a soft rag...until 1am.  Once they were all washed, I took stock of my new cookware--I got a dutch oven with this set that I didn't have with my first set.  I don't know what a dutch oven is.  I'm not sure if that's a shocking admission...am I supposed to know what a dutch oven is?  The fact that I don't know what to do with most of my new pots and pans (and didn't do much of anything with my old ones, either--thank goodness my husband does some cooking) may actually be a shocking admission.  Looking at these fresh, clean pots and pans drying on my counter makes me kind of want to know what to do with them.  I do not enjoy cooking in any form, but it feels a little pathetic and cop-out of me to not even know what I could do with them if I wanted.  I'm a really smart girl who once prided myself on my ambition and independence...yet I can't follow a recipe.  My neighbors and friends are constantly posting Facebook status updates on their gourmet dinners, and the best meal I make might very well be pancakes, especially if you ask my kids--they aren't huge fans of the one "real" meal I taught myself how to make, Pecan-Crusted Chicken from the Biggest Loser cookbook.  For reference, my husband hates pancakes.

This brand new set of pots and pans is somehow calling to me, begging me to put them to good use and at least attempt to be something better than I have been the last 8 years--a Good Housewife.  This won't be a blog all about the joys of cooking, and I definitely won't become Julia Childs (I saw that Julie/Julia movie and thought the Julie girl was out of her mind), but maybe I can discover some things about myself if I at least try?  I've been feeling out of sorts about the state of my life, my parenting, my marriage, my weight, my general purpose...and it hit me tonight looking at this gleaming cookware that I might be able to claw out of this rut by forcing myself out of my comfort zone.  I work well when I have a project, so I've created The Good Housewife Project.  Here are my haphazard, middle-of-the-night (and hopefully not abandoned-in-the-morning) goals for becoming a Good Housewife: 

• Get on Pinterest and figure out what to do with a dutch oven (and all my other cookware), and start experimenting with recipes.
• Figure out how to keep my house clean and clutter-free without neglecting my kids (and the fun things we do together that keep us away from the house and my chores).
• Eat healthier and make time to exercise...I want to finally lose the baby weight from my last baby, who is now 2.5 years old (and no longer a baby or an excuse).
• Have a more positive attitude toward my husband--I know I won't greet him at the door after work with dinner on the table while wearing a dress and heels, but I want to put in more effort to be less sarcastic, more supportive, and generally more pleasant with him.
• Spend more time with my kids.  This one is hard because I'm a stay-at-home mom...by definition, I spend ALL my time with my kids.  Somehow, that doesn't seem to accurately reflect how I feel about my parenting--I want to spend more time WITH them, not just in the same house (unloading the dishwasher, checking Facebook or my favorite blogs, talking on the phone to my mom...etc, etc, etc).
• Find a balance that includes some time for me and what I want to do...even though I have no idea what that is right now.

I'm sure I have more goals, but those are the ones that stuck out in my mind when I sat down to write this.  I'm hoping that by giving this attempt at improvement a name and an audience, I might actually be able to accomplish some (or all?) of my list.  I'm not big into the self-help genre (and I hate talking about myself, which would make a blog dedicated to only me fairly sparse and boring), so this blog will probably chronicle our daily ridiculous adventures that go along with my attitude and behavior adjustment.  How long before a Bad Housewife trying really hard can call herself a Good Housewife?