This. Is. Life.

*sigh*

It's really NOT a big deal. Damn, I wish I had the scrap sheet of paper that I wrote/"vented" on yesterday...

So here's the deal:

I'm tired. I'm very, very tired. I don't need sleep. It's not that type of tired.

A has been moving his store. Closing the old 3,200 sq-ft place and opening the new 1,800 sq ft place. I have been helping him. Of course I want to help. My days, in November, pretty much have looked like this:

Wake up. Make C's lunch. Get dressed. Wake C up. Give her breakfast. Get her dressed. Take her to school. Go to work. Leave work. Go to grocery store. Pick C up. Go home; unless my father is out of town or has a late meeting, in which case we go over to my parent's house, take care of the dog, and then go home. Take shower. Play with C. Make Dinner. Play with C. (throw "Clean and do laundry" in there at random locations after "Go home.") Sometimes go to feminist/activist meetings, with C and sometimes (rarely) without her.

AND THEN A comes home. Around 7:30-8:00 pm. That means I've been entertaining a two-year-old and reading the same books and having the same marvelous tea parties for a good two-and-a-half hours, while cleaning and cooking and god-knows what. I listen to how his day was, we eat dinner, spend a little time with C and then put her to bed from 9-9:15. After she goes to bed, I usually help A a bit with the transition from one place to another. (There's legal work to be done, advertising, etc.)

That is a weekday for me.

This past Saturday, I was struck with an uncharacteristic moment of anxiety over the whole law school business. As I sat reading a book to C, I freaked out (mentally.) In two week exactly, I will be taking the LSAT. What the hell am I doing? Who am I fooling? What's going to happen when I'm not accepted into law school?

Am I ready? I don't know. I don't feel any more ready than I did the first time I took it, and that first time was just to see what it was like.
How are my law school applications going? Gee, if I wasn't so depressed by that question, I would laugh hysterically. What, me, start?
Granted, in my mind, I didn't expect to have my applications done or even started at this point. But I'd like to begin, soon...I NEED to begin soon!

So on Saturday evening, A asked me what was wrong. I answered vaguely that I was stressed about law school and the LSATs. I did not want advice. I just wanted support. In hindsight, I probably should have said this.

Instead, A offered me oh-so-helpful-advice. He said that once he comes home, I should work. Um, okay. But you come home at 7:30 and 8, and that's our FAMILY TIME. I think we should eat dinner together; dinner is so nourishing of the spirit this way. Fine, okay, how about after C goes to bed?

Again...um...no. It's 9:15, I've worked a full day, played with a toddler with an endless energy supply. I am not mentally strong enough to study at 9:00 pm. (I've tried, and I suck at logic puzzles I can solve in my head in two minutes the next morning.) I also know from high school, college, and graduate school (a total of 12 years) that I do not focus at night, and that I end up making a lot of mistakes. I become easily frustrated, and given how I'm tired, I'm more likely to internalize this frustration and want to cope in unhealthy ways (purge, not eat, the whole lovely assortment). In addition to this, even if things go well, that sucks for me too because I then become so excited about whatever it is that I cannot sleep. And we know, I think, that insomnia is not conducive to writing well or me making sense. LOL.

In short, I told A that I didn't work after 8 PM. This was my rule in college and graduate school. It was a boundary I learned in high school, and I respect it. Sometimes I can work until 10 PM, but no later. I honestly cannot. I know my limitations. I learned them. I respect them.

His response?

"Setting a cut-off time for studying sounds like a poor excuse for lacking self-discipline."

Is your reaction to that line the same as mine? Do you want to throttle him? Do you want to laugh the most evil of laughs and pull out a photograph of me from high school when I never weighed more than 90 lbs? Moi? Lacking self-discipline? Because I know and respect my boundaries. Because I know that I have to take care of myself to take care of those I love. I'm just making stupid excuses because I'm--well, let's just say it, shall we?--LAZY?

Dear god. Dear god. Dear god. Dear god.

I cannot even remember what I said. Tears came to my eyes because I was so frustrated and hurt, though. The tears prompted a comment along the lines of "you need to not cry so easily" to which I responded nicely but pointedly, "you need to not tell me how to feel."

(that point was taken.)

We never really finished that discussion, though I did bring up that I knew myself and my own boundaries better than he did. I'm still hurt, though. And disappointed. My biggest frustration with A is that he kinda views everything from his own current perspective. He's very empathetic, but he cannot really imagine what it's like to not be a white male. He cannot imagine what it's like to not be confident.

That's just...foreign to me.

So on Sunday morning, C was playing and semi-watching television. I was studying LSAT problems and making toast or having an occasional sip of imaginary tea (it's a damn good blend!) A came downstairs and said that after he did a child-unfriendly errand that would last 2 hours or so, he'd watch C for the day and let me work.

Yay!

Except...that 2 hours or so lasted 5 hours. Now, I wasn't surprised by that, to be honest. I'm better at time estimation than he is, and I didn't think 2 hours would suffice.

So I spent yet another weekend day with C. All day. By myself. With a toddler.

I love her so much. I do. But I'm tired of being around her non-stop. I want some me time. I need some me time.

Our baby-sitter just moved to Portland or she would have gotten a call yesterday. I mean, it's a bad sign when you find yourself looking forward to Monday morning simply because A is taking C to school today (as he normally does--just in the move, it fell on me) and I knew I would have a solid 5 minutes by myself in the car.

Really? Is that what my life has come to?

Okay, I have no idea how to end this. I feel shitty for writing this much as it is. I feel even worse because I'm whining over basic domestic issues when there's so much more going on in the world. So much more serious things. I guess I just feel stretched very thin and very tight, and I don't want to snap.

But I feel close to snapping.

Okay, I'm sorry.