Yesterday was a typical Friday for me: a blizzard against which you duck your head, cover your face, and press into step by step. The wind blows so forcibly you must lean into it to make progress. You both desire that it let up and fear that it will, suddenly causing you to fall without resistance forward into a drift.
I have an enviable ‘flexible’ work week. It rarely flexes from week to week, but it certainly varies from most people’s 9-5 schedule. Monday-Thursday I work 6:30am until 5:00pm. I typically take a lunch break around noon. Mondays and Wednesdays during lunch, I take a Pilates class; Tuesdays and Thursdays I try to go out with a rotating list of coworkers.
Some people stare agog when I say I get into work at 6:30am. Some marvel at how quiet it must be, and how much work I must get done without anyone around to distract me. To some extent that is true, but the university oddly attracts many morning souls. I am not the first person into the office; and by 7:00am there are usually a dozen folks already well into their work. Most of those people work an eight hour work day, 6:30-3:00, 7:00-3:30, or 7:30-4:00. Working a 10.5 hour workday takes some fortitude.
The reason I work four 10 hour days is so that I can largely have Fridays to myself. I love how that implies time to curl up with a book, eat bonbons, and/or relax with a margarita. Lamentably, that is not my experience. Fridays are to accomplish a variety of tasks:
- Dropping off and/or picking up boys
- My health care appointments (doctor, surgeon, physical therapy, dentist)
- My mental health care appointments (weekly therapy and psychiatrist)
- My body care appointments (chiropractor, massage, haircuts)
- The boys’ appointments whenever possible
- Boys’ school related volunteer duties or events
- Weekly house duties (kombucha, kefir, laundry, sweeping, opening and sorting mail)
- Irregular house duties (goodwilling, photo organization, music or book file cleanup)
- Walking the dog
- Errands (delivering items, library book drop off, prescription pickups)
If I can, I periodically try to
- Arrange a social lunch with a former colleague I rarely see
- Walk the dog with a friend and talk over coffee
- Take a run
- Pamper myself with a pedicure
- Prepare for a moms’ group gathering or dinner at a friends house
To accomplish all of these tasks, since I don’t drive, I either walk or bike. Most Fridays I log 10-15K of cycling and another 5-7K walking, not including any deliberate running I do. This form of transport is time-consuming.
To reiterate, yesterday was typical for Fridays. I dropped off the boys at school. Then, I swung into Trader Joe’s to pick up stuff for a dinner party that evening. After unloading, just the cold stuff, I hurried to an event at Eliot’s school that went twice as long as I had expected. I rushed home, managed to get one load of laundry in, walk the dog and finish the kombucha and kefir batches before running off to get my haircut. Unfortunately, I mistakenly looked at a previous appointment reminder email with different times and services listed, and panicked about the timing. I texted Lee to push back a walk/talk/run after my haircut and hauled ass to the appointment. Once there it became clear that I had had the wrong time. Nothing to do about it until she was done. Re-texted Lee about another change in schedule, but he’d already adjusted his schedule based upon my prior message. I rushed back and decided to squeeze in a run/walk on my own and hope to catch up with him after. After 4k into my 8k (5 walk, 3 run), Lee canceled our chat, so I stayed out until 3:40. Got home, plugged in phone, stretched, iced, showered, unpacked rest of groceries, put in the next load of laundry, folded the prior load, prepared two salads for the dinner invite, packed up the bike with everything needed for dinner, then biked to retrieve Eliot and to take to the dinner party. Other than the furious texting with Lee, I spent no time on the laptop, no time writing, no time reading, no time chatting or communicating. Dinner with a couple of families completed the depleting.
Recently, we hired two UC Berkeley students to help pick up the kids after school Monday-Thursday. It has been about three weeks since we started that practice. We instituted this luxury as another treatment for my depression, to give me a consistent time of day to go for a run.
I knew I needed it, but I have struggled to reconcile that Sandy drops off the boys, and I don’t pick up the kids anymore. In my head, this put me in debt – as if I am not pulling my share of the load.
Reviewing this, I now feel less shame. It does not need to be a one to one bartering relationship. I work long and exhausting 10+ hour days and am in no shape to navigate the afterschool chaos of homework, music practice, and dinner preparation. I work these long days to have Fridays off. Now I see that my Fridays are filled with meeting familial needs – yes, some of it for me – but really if I were being selfish on Fridays – I’d sit at home, read, or work on a jigsaw puzzle. Now that sounds luxurious.