Back to Work Blues

I have rejoined the 9-5 world, and while I genuinely like my new job (and boy howdy does it ever present some "interesting challenges." Hoooo yeah.) getting readjusted to the schedule is ridiculously hard. I mean, I did this for YEARS. I was the original underpaid overworked single mother rushing around in the nice black pumps putting the kids in the minivan with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches clutched in their chubby hands for breakfast. And yet, doing that now, when my youngest child is 14 and reminds me daily that he really no longer needs me and I am in fact an active embarrassment to his social life, seems damn near impossible. I can't seem to juggle the way I used to. By the time I get home and start making dinner (if I make dinner; we had pizza three times this past week) it seems to be like 9:00 at night. And if anything else interferes with the daily routine, like a friend's birthday or going to South Asheville to see my mom? It's all over and the whole damn thing is blown to hell in a handbasket.

I know I'll adjust eventually, but just now it's all making me a bit down. I got all depressed in the supermarket the other night, particularly when the beer buying drunk in line behind me started commisterating with me about getting old. Damn him. He was supposed to pretend like he thought I was 20, doesn't he know that? Heh. I calmed down anyway - hell, if the laundromat and the supermarket in combination didn't depress me, I wouldn't be human.