5:30am the alarm on my cell phone goes off. For the past two months, I've been using the cell phone alarm to wake up because it is less disturbing than the alarm clock. I hit the snooze once and eight minutes later, I'm up. Eyes half open, morning breath, sometimes wearing the same shirt that I wore to work the day before.
5:30am. Waking up this early is hard. I hate waking up this early. Complete and total hatred for all things at 5:30am. But when your other option is to sit in a hour of bumper-to-bumper Silicon Valley traffic, you'd probably pick getting up at 5:30am too. It is the lesser of two evils. Sort of how I feel at every Presidential election.
Getting into the office before 7am has its own pros and cons too. I can get the freshest batch of coffee and get any work done before the rest of team meanders in around 8:30am. It is a blissful 90+ minutes. Similar feeling to when D is down for a nap. I can get a whole day's work complete in 90 minutes of uninterrupted silence. Just as with a crying baby, once the team arrives my day can quickly go downhill in terms of productivity. I lose focus, lose time, lose patience. And by the end of the work day, all I can think about is getting home. Putting my feet up. Relaxing. I always seem to forget that home is rarely relaxing and it will be well past 9pm before I am able to put my feet up (and that will only be to better balance my laptop while working on the couch).
Dealing with rush hour on the way home, almost always puts me in a foul mood. Then trying to get dinner on the table before 7pm is a challenge. A challenge that most days I enjoy, but other days just feels like salt in an open wound. Then add to the mix a picky toddler that would sustain on milk and strawberries if given the choice. By 8pm I am deflated. Exhausted. At wits end.
I do not have the option of not working. And no, we do not drive fancy cars or own a house too large for our family. I do not wear designer clothes or go out to eat on a regular basis. We are a middle class family that feels like we are working class.
It's a rat race in my professional world. And it's a rat race in my personal world as well. I am so focused on NOT failing that I think I am failing. I certainly am not the best employee and I am most definitely not the best mother. I not the best at anything.
