Re-entering the work force...

and scared as hell.
I got the job. I understand that statement should be followed by a couple of exclamation points but, as I am happy I got the job, I am apprehensive for so many reasons. Here are a few:

1. I haven't worked in an office setting since I went out on early maternity leave before Cecilia in September 2000.
2. I have to leave my babies for the whole day for maybe a month or more.
3. I will no longer have control over how much money I make (ie working my ass off when I know someone's birthday is coming up or when we need something important).
4. My training is full-time during the day, 8-4:30, requiring me to actually get up, shower, and get dressed on a fairly strict schedule.
5. I have to leave my babies for the whole day during this training period which may take as long as a month plus.
6. Did I mention I have to leave my babies?

However, not to sound so much the crazy mom, here are the good things:

1. My actual working hours after training are going to be 4pm - 8pm.
2. I get to wear scrubs to work (so much like the PJs I often work in now).
3. I am still going to transcribe some so I will have a little financial control.
4. I will actually get a set paycheck on a set schedule making it so much easier to budget.
5. I dream that in taking this job, with it's fabulously set working hours, I will manage to actually get things done - like cleaning my house.

I hoped to accomplish making myself feel better by making these lists but now I am just a mass of terrified perspective.

Freaking out a little

So today I have a job interview. I can't remember the last job interview I had. However, I do remember that I was a lot smaller and had a lot more clothes available to me. I had a total fit last night because the full reality of my fatness hit me when my XXL top still felt a little snug. My downward spiral continued as I went through my closet and discovered that I truly have nothing to wear to this interview. I know I have been out of it for a while but I also know that you have to have at least the slightest appearance of professionalism on sight to be considered for a job. All I have is looking like a schlub in ill-fitting clothes and my own personal knowledge that I CAN do this job and do it well. As I woke up this morning to work (my at-home job), I had this image of me walking up to the guy that I am interviewing with really fast so he doesn't notice what I am wearing. But then I worry about Murphy's Law and the fact that I would probably wind up getting tangled in my feet or something and knocking him unconscious. Seriously, I am going to start a list of the things I think anxious (crazy) people should be exempt from.

Being the Ugly Duckling

Apparently, I am having a pity party kind of day and I now feel the need to share my inadequacies. My whole life, I have been the Ugly Duckling. I mean it seriously. You know how in every group of beautiful people there is always that one that is not as attractive, maybe heavier, less intelligent, just an all around not quite fitting in type of person. The type of person that always takes people by surprise when she is seen with the beautiful people and they realize that she is actually part of the group. Well that has always been me. I don’t say this because I feel sorry for myself. Honestly, there is a sort of comfort in being the Ugly Duckling. Like a lack of expectation from other people. Or maybe the comfort comes from just always being that person. However, there are times that it gets to me. Tonight is the perfect example. My sister-in-law – beautiful, young, perfect hair, perfect body, wears a little too much makeup but it doesn’t bother anyone else but me, always dressed in the latest fashions but not in a weird trendy kind of way – came to visit tonight at my in-law’s house. She is a bit of a princess but overall she is great and I love her with all my heart. Anyway…I mention that I have started a running program. Believe me I use the term running loosely because my endurance is crap and at this moment in time I can barely speed walk. But those of you who know me know that I have always wanted to run but have never been able to and given recent developments over the last couple of years it is now possible for me to do it. Now my sister-in-law was a high school cheerleader, runs for fun, and did I mention the perfect body? She tells me how great she thinks it is and then tells me that she is going to be running a mini-marathon. Normally this wouldn’t bother me but I am having a pity party day. I smiled and made the appropriate encouragement phrases but the whole time I was thinking, “Again! How the hell does this keep happening to me??” My dream is that one day I will do something that no one can one up, I will be the swan, and for that short moment I will revel in being one of the beautiful people, just once. And the world will spin off its axis for a split second. Then I will go back to being the Ugly Duckling and the world will right itself again. I would probably hate it even for a second. Then again, who knows? It might be kind of cool.

Deep Thoughts

I am sorry to admit that I watched the Real World last night. I could give excuses that I watched it because I was so tired and there was nothing else on and I just needed something mindless to watch. Which would all be true but that is actually not my point. In this episode one of the roommates, Dan or Danny I think, finds out on Valentine’s Day that his mom died of a heart attack. Apparently, the story is that his parents aren’t together anymore and he did not have a really good relationship with her. Anyway…he was completely crushed. Of course they add to the drama by cutting to a phone conversation he had with her like four days earlier where she is saying just how much it means to her that he called her. She ends the conversation by saying I love you and he responds with an okay well talk to you soon. Being estranged (I guess that is the right word) from my birth father, by my choice, has gotten me thinking. Will I regret my decision to not speak to him when he dies? Will I look back and think if only I had given him another chance? Even as I write this there is a voice screaming inside of my head, “No! You may have made the decision but it was based on his actions over an incredibly long period of time and not some rash decision of the heart made in the heat of frustration. To continue to talk to him would have caused you to carry on a miserable existence where you would get your hopes up and then have him stomp on them. It would have caused you to spend your life in a sadistic holding pattern waiting for that one moment when he would give you what you needed, say what you were desperate to hear and it would never have come.” In letting my birth father go I let go of so much of the pain he had caused me (knowingly or not). Even now, I watch my brother and sister constantly get setup and let down by him. It is strange because in escaping the constant turmoil from him I have shackled myself to the role my mom used to play of defending him to my sister when he has hurt her. It sucks. What I really want to do is tell her what a dick he is and how much better her life would be if she just stopped talking to him and stopped letting him do the same thing to her over and over again. But instead I don’t say anything negative (or too negative) and I tell her that in continuing to talk to him she has to accept who he is which is a completely self-centered and self-serving shmuck. It doesn’t make much sense to tell her to accept him the way he is when I couldn’t but it is the best thing I can come up with when he crushes her with yet another disappointment. I also defend my decision by thinking about the fact that HE is the parent. Even though now I am an adult too he is still the parent. If fences were going to be mended shouldn’t that have happened when he realized that I was calling another man “dad,” or when I got engaged, or when he realized he wasn’t invited to my wedding, or the first time I was pregnant? Or even before that when I wrote him this heart pouring letter telling him exactly how I felt without accusing him of being an absentee father and telling him exactly what I needed from him to start making things better? I mean I was 19 for christ sake it is not like it was an “I am mad at you because you are mean” letter from a 10 year old. It truly is an outer body kind of experience to introduce your father to your husband and at the same time have it find out you are pregnant with your first child. Like something that should be happening on an after school special not in your life. Except in the after school special the father would have broken down in tears and repented for not being present in your life.
Yet despite all this knowledge that I did the right thing and that my life is so much better without him in it I still wonder if I will regret it one day. Will I regret Cecilia and Sophia not knowing him? Will they understand that my decision in not having him a part of their lives has everything to do with protecting them from the disappointments that map my childhood and not some bitterness because he is not married to my mother? Will they know just how lucky they are to have a “real grandfather” in my dad (my step-dad) even though they are not blood related? My heart truly answers no I won’t regret it and yes they will understand. But what if I am wrong? What if when he dies I spend the rest of my life wondering how things could have been if I had just accepted him for who he is?

Counting Down

I am leaving to go to NY in four days. I have such mixed feelings about it that I feel I need to write a list.

Pros:

• Getting out of Greensboro (always a good thing)
• Long drive means lots of time to myself listening to loud music and singing (which I cannot do)
• Seeing my friends who I have not seen in far too long
• Seeing my one month old nephew for the first time and I guess my brother and sister in law
• Seeing my sister
• Getting to eat really good NY food
• Bagels
• Break from work

Cons:

• Being so busy with work this week because my coworker is on vacation and not having a lot of time to rest and chill out before driving for nine hours
• Keith not coming with me
• Being away from Keith and the girls
• Leaving the baby (it just seems too soon)
• Having to leave at the butt-crack of dawn to come home on Sunday
• Coming home to a total mess at work (maybe)

Okay...I guess I feel a little better. I am really looking forward to the alone time. I definitely need some space from everyone to clear my head a little. I still hate that Keith is not going to be there though.

Conflicted

I am totally stressed right now and going about 90 miles a second so I have decided to vent about one of the many, many things on my mind. Going back to school. It looks so simple in words and it was so damn easy to write you would think there would be no problem. Except there are at least a thousand that come to mind when I think about going back to school. Money, time, my family, getting a job afterward, the school’s location - to name a few. Believe me I have been through all the arguments about all of them. Money…what does it matter to add more debt onto what we have. Time…I would have to stop working because there is no way I can be a full time student, work, raise two girls, and be a wife (notice I am leaving out having a clean house because that is so very low on my to-do list. So sad!). My family…how much will I neglect my family to be able to study and attend classes never mind the other requirements that I would need to meet for the degree I want. Getting a job afterward…I want to do something that I like but I also want to be able to get a job after I am done with school. I cannot justify not working and spending money we don’t have to learn something I can’t put into practice later. The school’s location…this is the most confusing and stress-inducing one for me so I have to share a little background. Since I was about 18ish I have wanted to become a deaf interpreter. I am fascinated by the deaf community and have a true love for the language. Besides, I am Italian so I already talk with my hands. There is a college here that has a four-year program but since I dropped out of college forever and ever ago whatever credits I may have are probably obsolete. And honestly I cannot justify “dropping out” of my family’s financial well being for four years to get my degree. So I figured I could find something else that I wanted to do and while researching a few things I came across a school that offers a fully accredited two-year program in deaf interpreting…in Charlotte. Of course, Keith, being as wonderful as usual, is all about it because he fully supports my going back to school and comes up with a plan to get us out of here and to Charlotte which cannot happen for a while. Just as an aside, Charlotte is about an hour and a half from where we are now give or take. This all seems pretty straight forward and not a big deal. The biggest things we should need to deal with are selling the house, Keith finding a job, and finding a place to live we can afford in a good school district. Simple. Not so much. Like in all good reality there is a twist. Since I have moved down here (eight years ago) my sister has moved down here with her husband (six years ago) and my parents moved down here (two years ago), and Keith’s parents already live here. A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned to my sister about the school and she reacted like she was a little mad and said “well how do you expect me to feel when I moved here for you and now you are planning on moving away.” Now of course I did not think she would do cartwheels over me moving but for her to not be even the tiniest bit supportive surprised me. And in my defense, she has lived here for six years so it is not like she moved here yesterday and today I am telling her I am leaving. But now this has made my decision all the more harder. I also don’t want to move the girls away from their grandparents and aunt and uncle either. I want to say that I can find something else that I want to do to be able to stay here but honestly I have wanted to move to Charlotte even before I found the school there. And I also believe that if my sister had an opportunity to move someplace else to benefit her and her family than I would support her and not let my feelings of missing her get in the way. And I will miss her and it is a huge factor. Part of me wants to say come with us but I know that is unfair and unrealistic. Selfishly I want her to come, she is my best friend. But I know I can’t (and I don’t) expect her to follow me wherever I go. Besides an hour and a half is not that far. I guess I did expect her to support me a little more. I am sure eventually she will. It just makes all these decisions harder. Never mind my thinking that I am not smart enough to go back to school and have been very lucky to get the job I have now and maybe I should just stick with that and not set myself up to fail and screw up the good thing I have going. I think I am more confused. I need to write a pros/cons list.

This is what happens when paranoid people became parents

Sophia is three months old. For most parents, three months is like the magic number. It is when things start evening out. Babies sleep longer, they are more aware of what is going on around them when they are awake. They smile often and may even giggle. There is nothing better than your baby flashing a sweet smile in your direction when she hears your voice. For me, three months means anxiety, stress, dreaded anticipation that something is going to go wrong.
I read lots of parent magazines. I learn a lot from those magazines even though some of the articles and most of the reader write-ins make me mad. Keith says I should be given my own column just to respond to the ignorant parents who write in about past articles. I get about three magazines a month that I read (to some degree) cover to cover. In every issue of each magazine there is a least one true-life tragic story. These are the articles with titles like “Saving Baby…” or “Johnny Spends Three Months In The Hospital” and when I get to them I know I shouldn’t read them. They all have that car wreck can’t look away quality. And me being very sensitive read them with my heart racing and tears running down my face. So why should these articles give me a sense of terror and panic for my so far (knock wood) healthy three month old? Because the majority of these stories start with “everything was going just perfectly until Janie turned three months.” I actually hadn’t given her upcoming three-month birthday much thought because we have had so much going on and I lost all of yesterday to a migraine. But this morning, Sophia was a little flushed and seemed a little cranky. You are actually not supposed to determine if a baby is warm by the temperature of their face but anyway…face flushed and a little cranky. Do I subject the poor child to a temperature reading the old fashion way because of my paranoia? I contemplate it while I have her up on the changing table but decide not to as I watch her get all flirty and giggly with her own reflection. I silently berate myself for letting my anxiousness get the best of me and head out to the library. But through our library trip my flirty girl went back to starring at me with glassy eyes and being very cranky. So now I am back to jumping at every little sound she makes. Is this a telltale sign of some impending doom? I know I am driving myself crazy but I can't stop my mind racing to every story I read with the words "I just knew something wasn't right when..." AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH! I will be much better once we reach the three and a half month mark. Or maybe four…