Saturday, January 19, 2013

I didn't fail.

I started school the first full week of January. I was excited and rarin' to go with 7 credits to tackle. But now, nearly three weeks later I have only 2 credits remaining. I spent three nights this past week alone getting home from work at around 4-4:30 starting homework and not stopping for more than a 15 minute dinner break until I went to bed at 8:30-9(Don't judge! Dj's alarm rings at 5:30 and I usually have insomnia on top of that). Last week I dropped my English class because I already took the exact same class at Cuesta and am waiting to hear back from the Records department about getting it counted for credit. But yesterday when I picked Dj up from school we had a long talk about what I should do. I felt like I was doing a great job at work, giving my all in a relatively negative environment. I felt like I was doing great at school, despite the 8-10 hour a week work load from one of my 2 unit classes I still had 100% in both classes(I know, only the first 2 weeks but I felt accomplished). But I felt like I had failed that week at being a wife. We hadn't had more than a few moments to talk all week. Here he was in his Senior year and he had done the dishes, made dinner a few nights, and three loads of laundry all this week while I was working on homework. I felt like a failure because I was realizing that if I kept up the weekly load that I wouldn't be able to be there at all this quarter to support my husband through his final months before graduation. He would have to worry about dinner, cleaning, and keeping his wife from throwing the computer across the room all semester long, something I never wanted him to worry about until he was at least done with school.
So I dropped out of my class. I have one left, a religion class that I really like so far. I had such high ambitions at the beginning of the year and I really wanted to accomplish them, I'm really disappointed that I wasn't able to do it. But I hadn't considered the toll it would take on our marriage and my poor, loving, supportive husband. I didn't fail at being a student. I made realizations about my limits and decided to not ignore them.
I think a large part of the reason I took on so much is because I'm tired of working so much, I wanted to feel like a student again instead of just another 40 hour grind worker. It's definitely a difficult spot to be in. I enjoy aspects of my job but the company I'm at is growing and losing their mom and pop/care about our employees feeling so they haven't been treating us the way they used to. But I also see where I fall short in cleaning our home and doing all the things that a wife usually does. I lose my perspective pretty easily, I feel like I'm just working to pay the bills so that we can survive enough for me to just keep working, if that makes any sense. I forget that this is my role for the family right now, to bring in enough money so that Dj can focus on school. I'm helping him live his dream of higher education.Which means I didn't fail by dropping some of my classes. I'm succeeding in being a supportive wife!
I never imagined I'd still be working full time by the time our 3rd anniversary came around (we're only fourish months away!) but my life is still amazing and I am over the moon happy in my marriage. Who can really ask for more than that?

1 comment:

  1. Your marriage is so much more important than school, in my opinion anyways. I feel the same way you do, minus having to go to work. Honestly my house has been a mess for so long because I just get so caught up in everything else. Can we please have a free maid service once in awhile?

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