Annoyed

I'll start this post out with admitting that everything is annoying me these days. So, of course, why wouldn't a sweet innocuous little memoir on motherhood by Anna Quindlin not annoy me as well? I'll get to that in a bit...just let me say that I'm tired. Really, just very very tired of my life right now. Nothing seems to be going great and yet I don't have anything significant to complain about. So yes, I'm tired of x, y, and z, and yet I'm also tired of my internal dialogue complaining about how tired I am of everything! I'm obviously having one of those low weeks where you want to crawl into your shell with a lot of good movies and good books and really good ice cream and get away from your life and your thoughts for just a couple days. A deserted and beautiful resort in the mountains sounds perfect, but a place where I don't have to deal with another human being but am completely pampered. Yes, that sounds nice. Really really nice.

So this sweet little memoir I referred to...why is it annoying me? Read the excerpt below and I'll explain...

"But the biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make while doing this. I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of the three of them, sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages 6, 4 and 1. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less."

I am not so annoyed that I can't agree with it, because I do. What aggravates me is that I do agree with it, and I'm living it now, but if she truly remembered correctly she probably thought the same thing as she was "doing" but still had to focus on the getting it done too! Yes, wouldn't it be nice to think about how lovely it was to sit on that blanket on the perfectly warm and sunny summer day with your 3 beautiful children playing perfectly all around you. And there is the mom, sitting prettily in her perfect white dress with a sweet smile on her face, basking in the glory of her perfect children and the perfect day and everything is so glorious that she has the time to enjoy the smell and the warmth and the sounds of her children and not think about another thing...

WRONG! Dear Anna, first of all that is not how it all came down. Maybe it was warm but you had to keep repositioning the blanket because it kept getting in the sun and it would be too hot. The cold food and the hot food was luke warm. There were ants and flies and odd flying beetle things buzzing all around you. Your 6 year old was constantly tormenting your 4 year old, knowing all the right buttons to push and pretending that she knew it all and was the boss. Your 4 year old was whining about said 6 year old, about the heat, about the food, about not having his toys, about wanting to go inside, about... And your 1 year old was exhausting you. She couldn't walk yet but wanted to be on the move all the time, so you were spending the entire time running after her and trying to keep her from eating the grass and getting underfoot of the other 2 kids. So here you are, trying to feed your 3 children in the sun with bugs flying all around listening to them bicker and constantly getting up to remove your baby from wandering too far or eating too much grass and all you could think about was how nice it will be when they're asleep and you can have a moment of peace and quiet before you have to clean the dishes and pay the bills and remember the 100 things you have to do but wait, gee!, I should be enjoying this moment in my life because before I know it they won't want anything to do with me and then they'll be out of the house. Right?

Or maybe it's been so long and she's so delusional that she actually misses that too. She misses the constant and emotionally draining sleep deprivation and the constant running to keep up with her life and the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde that are her children. Maybe she does. And maybe I will too. But right now I'm just really tired of this existence and what I'd really like is some good long deep sleep.

LC kept us up half the night and it's not like it's been a long time since that happened before. He's the most random sleeper despite having had a very constant and set routine most of his life. Mostly he does ok. Mostly I get sleep. Not enough sleep, usually not totally uninterrupted sleep or past the break of dawn sleep, but I get some. So when these bad nights happen they just push me back farther into the sleep deprivation bank and I'm back to running on empty. LC is on his 4th ear infection and has 4 teeth pushing through (2 of those are already out somewhat thank god). I'm working on 11 months of sleep deprivation, for the 2nd year in the last 4 years, and it's taking its toll. I'm tired.

I'm tired of my job. I'm frustrated daily with trying to manage a US government funded project largely by myself, part-time, with no in-country support and from my home. With 2 young children it is nearly impossible to get my hours in during a normal day and without constant interruption by family or home demands. Since we lost our nanny (we have a new one) C has been especially demanding on my time and doesn't want to play with anyone but me. So it is a constant stream of whining and complaining from him all afternoon. And to him work is not a credible reason for not playing with him. I am tired of not having more support for a very demanding position. I am tired of not being able to schedule the non-work part of my days because work demands often take precedent should they come up. (Fortunately my work life has an end date in sight - more on that another time)

I am tired of our lonely social life. Not since college have I had so many friends and done so much socially, and yet it's been a very long time since I've been so lonely. I like my friends here, but it is a pretty superficial friendship. I don't have a single friend here with whom I'd share truly personal thoughts. I just don't have much in common with them. Most of my friends here don't have a career and haven't worked in years. Most of them also have had no exposure to the international development world so for this reason and because a career isn't important to them I can't talk with them about my work. Most of them also don't volunteer or even take classes or anything. They go to playgroups, they go to the spa, they go shopping, they go out with friends and drink too much and make sure their nanny comes in early the next day so they can recover in peace. It's not that they're living a pampered life that I have a hard time with, I guess it's just that what do I have to talk about with them? We talk about kids, where we bought furniture, where to go on vacation. It just gets old. I have a few friends who do work in my field, but they work full time so we only occasionally see them on the weekends. Indonesia is a strange place for expats. There are so many here, there is so much going on, it's very easy to meet people but difficult to find people with whom you have a lot in common. And I never thought it would be so hard to meet people more like me and J. Every other country I've worked in I have been surrounded by the development community. But here we really are in the minority. The oil companies and private enterprise are much bigger players.

I suppose my whinge fest is over. I'm not even sure this entry is worth posting. I hate listening to myself whinge and whine when I know I'm so blessed in so many ways. But I guess it's part of the sharing and the whole - just how are J and B doing over there on the other side of the planet? We're doing alright, hanging in there, trying to get through the days like most of you I suppose, just with a couple different twists. So enough of the bla, bla, bla...

I still have to write about what's been going on at work and about my trip to Bangkok. I will get to it, I promise. And I'm sure it will be far more interesting than this post was!