in which becky loses time with P. and sleep. also sleep.
It's been awhile since my last post. Let's just say that tax season is a friend to no one. No, not even the tax return preparers. I have lost all semblance of free time, and I do indeed have finals coming up. Again. The year started out in a frenzied race to find a second car for us, and I can't begin to articulate my gratitude that we found one for a steal, or that we even found one. So much gratitude. I'm getting ahead of myself.
The need for a second car in our lives became real when P had to add two more classes to his schedule. In order to qualify for an amazing paid internship this fall, he had to have more of his specialized classes under his belt. The internship was too good an opportunity to pass up, so he added to his workload. And his schedule. And if we didn't find a second car pronto, I was going to lose my mind. Having one car meant that I had to get up an hour earlier, just to sit at work until I could start working at nine (my psychopath supervisor will not let me start working until the computer on my desk says 9:00 AM. literally), which meant that I usually had at least an hour to kill. I tried the sleeping route, but I think I just hold too much latent hatred in my heart for this place that there's no way I could ever fall asleep. Let's keep in mind that on an average night, I get home from school around 11. So we're lucky to be asleep by midnight, and I'm the kind of girl that will thrive on 9 hours, be fine with 8, and die a thousand deaths with 7. Calm down, I don't have kids yet, I know. I know I'll die. Take a deep breath. I'm illustrating a point. On the one hand, I had to get up earlier. On the other hand, sometimes P has to work later than my nine-to-fiver. Which meant me spending even more time in this snake pit. I was not a happy camper.
The car search took two weeks. Those two weeks lasted a thousand years. "Be grateful it wasn't longer." Fine. I am. But it felt like eternity. Especially when we felt like we had found the perfect deal, went to check it out and have it checked out, only to find it was a dud. Oh the depressed spiral. Finally, on a whim, we found a crazy good deal, bought a second car for us, and haven't looked back since. P loves his truck.
And now we are presented with a new set of trials. We never see each other. Unless our schedules happen to miraculously overlap, we have time to say goodbye in the morning, and goodnight when we're falling asleep. I don't know how military families do it. I don't know how couples that survive through tons of work trips, and meetings, and appointments do it. I'm a mess not being able to see him for more than 20 minutes a day. It's kind of pathetic. I'm a little confused about what I did before I was married...I guess I don't remember.
This leads me to the weekend. P works on Friday nights until around 10. I only have school Monday thru Thursday. On Friday nights, I come home and crash, desperate to catch up on the sleep that had been so evasive the entire week previous. I think the desperation keeps me awake. Or maybe the fact that I now have around 10,000 loads of laundry to catch up on. Or a mountain of dishes to climb, where the summit is farther away than Everest. I don't catch up on the sleep. P gets home and we watch a movie, or hang out with friends, or for whatever reason, we end up staying up until 1 or 2 in the morning. I think we're just in denial. Or maybe I am. At 26, I'm clinging to my college-age, adolescent imagination that says the weekend is party time. We roll into bed around 2ish, and relish in the fact that neither of us has to be up early in the morning.
However, says my brain, I'm going to wake you up at 8 anyway, just because I can't adjust to any kind of deviance in the schedule. What a jerk. Closer to 10, P starts to stir, and like Christmas morning as a child, this means the time has come that I can get out of bed. We spend a little time catching up on our lives, and then, predictably, noon rolls around. Without fail, noon on Saturday comes, what is that even about? And P has to leave for work. I get as much housework done in those few hours as I possibly can, and he's home around 4. I'm exhausted, but we're young still, remember? So we go out on a date, usually not with any friends, because, really, a full conversation hasn't even happened yet. We have a blast doing whatever we've decided to do, and once again, crawl into bed too late.
Sunday is a blur. I'm putting the finishing touches on my primary lesson, he's taking care of elder's quorum responsibilities, and then we don't see each other at church until the third hour, which is Sacrament Meeting. Sacrament Meeting will be another post for another day, but we make it through, hopefully felt the Spirit, and hand off our tithing. We get home, might have home teachers or a meeting with the Primary Presidency, and then sit down to eat. The rest of the day is my favorite part of the entire week. No obligations to anyone, nothing in our way.
So we end up staying up too late again, and the whole process starts over. It's a struggle. But we're still fantastically happy, and loving life, if only a little bit exhausted in the process.
The need for a second car in our lives became real when P had to add two more classes to his schedule. In order to qualify for an amazing paid internship this fall, he had to have more of his specialized classes under his belt. The internship was too good an opportunity to pass up, so he added to his workload. And his schedule. And if we didn't find a second car pronto, I was going to lose my mind. Having one car meant that I had to get up an hour earlier, just to sit at work until I could start working at nine (my psychopath supervisor will not let me start working until the computer on my desk says 9:00 AM. literally), which meant that I usually had at least an hour to kill. I tried the sleeping route, but I think I just hold too much latent hatred in my heart for this place that there's no way I could ever fall asleep. Let's keep in mind that on an average night, I get home from school around 11. So we're lucky to be asleep by midnight, and I'm the kind of girl that will thrive on 9 hours, be fine with 8, and die a thousand deaths with 7. Calm down, I don't have kids yet, I know. I know I'll die. Take a deep breath. I'm illustrating a point. On the one hand, I had to get up earlier. On the other hand, sometimes P has to work later than my nine-to-fiver. Which meant me spending even more time in this snake pit. I was not a happy camper.
The car search took two weeks. Those two weeks lasted a thousand years. "Be grateful it wasn't longer." Fine. I am. But it felt like eternity. Especially when we felt like we had found the perfect deal, went to check it out and have it checked out, only to find it was a dud. Oh the depressed spiral. Finally, on a whim, we found a crazy good deal, bought a second car for us, and haven't looked back since. P loves his truck.
And now we are presented with a new set of trials. We never see each other. Unless our schedules happen to miraculously overlap, we have time to say goodbye in the morning, and goodnight when we're falling asleep. I don't know how military families do it. I don't know how couples that survive through tons of work trips, and meetings, and appointments do it. I'm a mess not being able to see him for more than 20 minutes a day. It's kind of pathetic. I'm a little confused about what I did before I was married...I guess I don't remember.
This leads me to the weekend. P works on Friday nights until around 10. I only have school Monday thru Thursday. On Friday nights, I come home and crash, desperate to catch up on the sleep that had been so evasive the entire week previous. I think the desperation keeps me awake. Or maybe the fact that I now have around 10,000 loads of laundry to catch up on. Or a mountain of dishes to climb, where the summit is farther away than Everest. I don't catch up on the sleep. P gets home and we watch a movie, or hang out with friends, or for whatever reason, we end up staying up until 1 or 2 in the morning. I think we're just in denial. Or maybe I am. At 26, I'm clinging to my college-age, adolescent imagination that says the weekend is party time. We roll into bed around 2ish, and relish in the fact that neither of us has to be up early in the morning.
However, says my brain, I'm going to wake you up at 8 anyway, just because I can't adjust to any kind of deviance in the schedule. What a jerk. Closer to 10, P starts to stir, and like Christmas morning as a child, this means the time has come that I can get out of bed. We spend a little time catching up on our lives, and then, predictably, noon rolls around. Without fail, noon on Saturday comes, what is that even about? And P has to leave for work. I get as much housework done in those few hours as I possibly can, and he's home around 4. I'm exhausted, but we're young still, remember? So we go out on a date, usually not with any friends, because, really, a full conversation hasn't even happened yet. We have a blast doing whatever we've decided to do, and once again, crawl into bed too late.
Sunday is a blur. I'm putting the finishing touches on my primary lesson, he's taking care of elder's quorum responsibilities, and then we don't see each other at church until the third hour, which is Sacrament Meeting. Sacrament Meeting will be another post for another day, but we make it through, hopefully felt the Spirit, and hand off our tithing. We get home, might have home teachers or a meeting with the Primary Presidency, and then sit down to eat. The rest of the day is my favorite part of the entire week. No obligations to anyone, nothing in our way.
So we end up staying up too late again, and the whole process starts over. It's a struggle. But we're still fantastically happy, and loving life, if only a little bit exhausted in the process.
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