It's Just One Year

Immediately after buying a house and moving in, I went back to graduate school. I know it's only one course at a time, and I don't have to go to South Boston to take classes (UMB) but I'm finding school and work demanding and draining. I feel like I will remember 2012 as the year where I was always too tired.

My friends are supportive--they know it's just a year. I don't see as much of them as I did previously, but there are still breakfasts at Sugar Mags and dinners at the Old Spot. I have learned I can't go out to breakfast, write/compile a group project, go to the grocery store* and have dinner all in one day, so I eat breakfast in and skip the grocery store.

It's not just school, of course--it's Bust Your Ass Season** at work. Last Friday I was in a project management meeting for Big Thing. The Project Manager asked that we submit all our summer vacation to him.*** This would have been fine, but my sister and I hadn't scheduled a time for her to come up with her kids yet this summer. I called her on my cell phone from one of the conference rooms at work. "I have to schedule all my vacation time for the rest of the summer today." I said along with many other less than coherent things. The end result of the conversation was that my sister said that maybe they wouldn't come up this year. "It's only a year you're in school--right?" she said.

As I left the conference room I said "I hate myself." Apparently I said it out loud, because the receptionist said "Don't feel that way about yourself."

When I talkeed to my sister the next day she said "Look--you're super busy now and you're going to feel all 'EEEEH' I don't want to come up and be around you when you feel that way--it's like when people came to visit right after I had a baby--I was like 'Thank you for coming, but now is not a good time to visit'." Clearly she gets it. And forgives me--or if she doesn't, at least she understands the concept "overwhelmed".

Her son, who is 7 is less forgiving. He asked to speak to me "Are you very busy now?" he asked. "Yes" I responded. "Okay. Bye."

I asked my sister what that was about and she said she wasn't sure, but she had explained to the kids that they wouldn't be coming up to Massachusetts this summer because I had other stuff going on.

Ow. Cue "Cat's in the Cradle."That's right kiddos--you can't go to the beach this summer because I'm too busy. I am a waste of carbon and hydrogen.

My mom and my aunt will be in Gloucester staring Sunday. I'm hoping to get to show them my house and see them for dinner and go to the beach with them, but my ability to do any of these things is severely hindered because next week/weekend is the last week of the class I'm in now and I'll probably be spending a good portion of it doing a final project (as yet undisclosed--good fun though, I'm sure.) The timing sucks. A week later I'd be in week one of my next class--with marginally more free time.

There hasn't been much beach for me this summer. I am still not fully moved into my house and there is still construction dust in the kitchen. I have friends who have volunteered to help me clean, but I've spent every weekend doing homework. I can't take any more time off for the next month (to clean, do homework or just to chillax.) I hate that all my mental efforts--all of my processing time--is devoted to work or school. I hate that I have almost nothing left for my friends or my family. It's really this that bothers me the most.

And so I tell myself--it's just one year. And I count the weeks.



*For those of you raising your eyebrows at this--I live in suburbia and I don't drive. Going to the grocery store is a Project.

**I remember when summer was a slow time where I worked. For the last two years it has been Crazy Go Nuts season.

***Oversimplification, but you get the idea.