Day Off

I have two jobs. I am a fulltime government employee and on some weekends I put on a uniform. I admit my uniform job is interesting and challenging, but it takes some of my weekends away. And weekends are when I catch up on sleep. You see I am also a single mother. And working mothers are tired. We are all TIRED.

I have several friends that are young and single. Some are female. Most of them are male. The married ones have their wives to watch the kids. There is some division of labor. The single ones? Ugh! forget it. They have NO idea. And then there's me.

Now I almost wrote a paragraph describing my daily schedule, but every working single mother knows those hours. I think this post is to impress upon my married and single friends how much mental and physical energy is expended balancing a career and children. It feels like everything you do is abridged and shallow. I am seldom allowed enough time to think deeply as I did before my divorce. I consistently forget... well, too many things. I converse with my son in notes I leave on the kitchen counter. Many times I lose my train of thought. And I am profoundly tired.

Enter THE DAY OFF. One of those will occur in...1.5 hours. I will sleep late, first of all. I hope to regain all of the REM sleep I lost this week. I will do laundry, probably. I will try to draw and get distracted by something I am supposed to do, like prepare the 50 pages of forms for my son's high school registration. Then I'll vacuum the floor, because, well, it needs it. I'll email a few people. Towards the end of the day I will walk to the park and look at bugs and plants and wonder why I'm not a park ranger, since that was my original career path. It'll hurt to think about that void in my life, but the memories of the time I spent in the woods will be fond. I will walk back through the park, looking at the regular families, wives and husbands who have each other. That will hurt a little....a lot, really. Then I'll walk back in the door and see 2 little black cats and teenager with a joke to tell me. I will sit down, smile, and fall asleep in the chair...because I'm tired.