MAMACADABRA

I was in a bit of a state this morning.  All weekend I was in a funk, if you will, and this morning I was in an effing state.

To be fair…I listened to a lot of Nas this weekend which left me feeling a tad aggressive.

We had one of those weekends.  The kind where we didn’t have the little girls at our house, and yet we didn’t see much of each other, and it’s Monday and we’re already plotting out our schedule for the next week to determine how to get it all done.  And by “it” I mostly mean my husband’s stuff.  He’s coming to the end of yet another trimester of school and he’s been working his ass off to get everything done, prepare for his last year (of this degree at least), and looking ahead to grad school.  Because school is taking up a little more time right now, he feels as though he’s not doing enough at work, so he’s been spending extra time there as well.  The man spent all day at school on Saturday, and split Sunday between school and work.

As I sat down to fold clothes last night I received a text from a girlfriend who is falling in love.  She’d spent a lazy day sleeping in, walking around lakes, having drinks on an outdoor patio, etc.  For her?  I am ecstatic.  For me, however, hearing of a lovely day of adult activities made me wonder if my husband and I will ever be able to do such things again.

Part of the reason I was so attracted to my husband, when we met, is that he is freakishly hard-working, ambitious, and he has grandiose ideas of what his future will hold (as I do).  When he decided to add school to the mix, I was overjoyed, it would only propel him further in his dreams and eventual success.  What could be better than that?  For the past several years he has shown the most unbelievable commitment to getting it all done and doing it well.  He amazes me over and over.  I am often in awe at his ability to do all he does and keep his sh-t together.

Rarely do I find myself annoyed at the amount of time he puts into work and school.  I don’t give him a hard time for not being home.  I don’t resent his being gone.  I don’t worry about where he is.  Because, again, all of this makes up part of the dude with whom I fell in love.  Being ambitious and hard working?  That is wicked hot.

This weekend I felt icky.  We had sh-t to do, we were dividing and conquering, and I felt like crap.  Because I felt like crap, when my husband was home, I felt bad because I felt like crap and we only had just a bit of time together this weekend.  Feeling icky and guilty is a super awesome combination.  It also makes me really fun to be around.

We met last night for dinner quick as he went from school to work.  It took us 25 minutes to eat and again we were off and running.  I’d spend the entire day cleaning and poop scooping (there is literally so much poop in our yard that it feels like science fiction…I cannot for the life of me understand how it’s possible for there to be so much).  When I got home, sat down to fold laundry, and got my girlfriend’s blissful text?  I started to feel a little violent.

Not violent actually, but more sad and concerned.  Umm…side note…it’s possible that my feelings were a teensy bit affected by hormones.  I went from thinking my girlfriend’s day was lovely and awesome to wondering what in the world we will do when, after the next four years of work and school have passed, we finally have less busy weekends.  Will we be so used to running our own separate ways all the time that we won’t even know how to spend time together?  Will my husband even want to be home?  Or will he be so accustomed to working and going to school all weekend, and on weekday nights, that he will feel antsy when it’s just us bumming around the house?  Will we remember what it means to relax?  To just have fun?  To hang out with each other without having to rush anywhere?  Are we doomed???

I was finishing up my fifth episode of HBO’s Girls and thinking that it might be time for bed when he texted and said he was on his way home to me.  I was tired, still felt icky, and I felt like we’d both been firing and missing all weekend.  I was in bed reading when he got home and within a few minutes could no longer keep my eyes open.  Fail.

This morning, he was kissing me goodbye before my alarm even had the chance to go off.  By the time we spoke around lunch time, I’d worked myself into a state.  I was talking quickly since I hadn’t had the opportunity to compile my swirling thoughts into something cohesive.  I told him I worried that someday he’d realize he was happier at school or in the office than he was sticking around home or hanging out with me.  He told me he clearly hadn’t communicated the fact that he hated how much he was away from home lately.  It took a quick conversation and a few texts for everything to feel right in our world again.

We both run 100 miles per hour, we thrive when doing so, and we’re running to the same place.  We know what we want, how to get there, and what needs to be done.  Every once in awhile I feel like we’re both running, side by side, but not necessarily together.  The risk we run when we’re this busy is missing the opportunities to talk frankly about how we’re feeling about everything.  When we’re racing around, our conversations are primarily focused on how to make it all work.  Not how everyone is feeling about it.

I have to remember that the only way we will ever rule the world, or our little corner of it, is by keeping our heads above water.  The only real life preservers are honesty and constant communication.  Thank goodness we have both…we just have to remember to use them.