No, I mean the end of my paid employment at the Humane Society. It's been amazing and frustrating and heartbreaking and joyful all at the same time. I've never had such an emotional connection to a job before, which meant that I took all of those emotions home with me. I would get home and be unable to function some nights due to exhaustion, not to mention the nights that I came home with starvation cases or bottle-feeding puppies. Other nights, I'd be just giddy with excitement after a day of adoptions. But the vast majority of nights I came home to an empty house.
David travels every week and I worked every weekend (Wednesday - Sunday). We'd easily go weeks - sometimes a month or more - without spending a day together. We might get a Friday or Saturday night, but he leaves on Sundays and I have grad school during the week at night. I don't know about you, but I need more time with my partner than that. We put up with the schedule for almost a year, but it finally became too much. I love my job and I love working, but I love my husband more.
My last day is Friday, June 3rd. When I wake up on Monday morning, I have nothing to do. That's going to be tough - how do I fill my days? How do I maintain a sense of purpose? (And don't say laundry). I have a ton of volunteer options. I think it's going to be a matter of setting a schedule for myself...or I'll get sucked into the Bravo tv marathon vortex.
How much time do you spend with your significant other? Do you wish you had more time, or more quality time?
I wish we had more quality time. We have a lot of obligated time. I love our families, but commitments can abound when your entire extended family lives within a 50 mile radius of each other. Sometimes we fight about it, sometimes we shut out the world, but most of the time we try and schedule time. That works out only so well. Our favorite thing to do is travel together and no one is more fun to travel with than my husband. Alas, traveling can't occur all the time. But, we have a date night planned on Friday, and I can't wait!!
ReplyDeleteWe have learned to live with the schedule of school, work, kids, sports(not me obviously). It usually a glass(es) of wine at 9:30 and coffee in the morning. I look back on my parents at this time in their lives and realize they didn't get much done either but had plenty of time after we all were gone. Its never an easy process and I understand your decision completely. I had the odd choice of son here or me working in NY. Easy answer for me in retrospect.
ReplyDeleteGreat point about time vs. quality time! I feel like we have time together (as my husband likes to say, 'we see each other every day') But the real challenge comes with finding quality time. Congrats on your last day!
ReplyDeleteYou make some great thought provoking points. For my family, it seems that quality time opportunities come and go in cycles. For example, my wife is a corporate accountant and from January to the beginning of May, we didn't get much time at all. With Jessica working til the wee hours of the morning and me living the life of a post modern man, if we didn't put quality time on the calendar, it didn't happen. Needless to say, I think we had one weekend getaway to Myrtle Beach and 2 movie nights in four months. Not acceptable. Congrats on your last day.
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