I’m low. So clear the current situation w/Raf traveling does not work, for me at least. With the exception of two nights he was recently gone for four weeks. For those of you without children, I’d just like to say FOUR…WEEKS! Four! Weeks! I’d like to continue to rise to the occasion, but I can’t. Bro-ken.

Then, as he always does, Rafael came home. He looked like a zombie, but the sun shone on our family again. His project was complete, the impossible done. He was no longer working 16-hour days himself. He roughhoused. He changed diapers. He drove to and from preschool. And, blessedly, I was not alone working and not-sleeping and trying so hard and not-managing it all.

But by the time the good man returned from his earning expedition, I’d drunk the last dredges of my Survival Juice. I was looking at him like, “WTF are you DOING here? You haven’t BEEN HERE. We (the kids and I) have a SYSTEM!” It’s always like this. We need time together to relax, to work together again. But I’d been a madwoman trying to accomplish more than possible. Ali and Story needing more than I can give. And the big ole bills from our superhero nannies…It wasn’t pretty.

So I’m defeated today, and without a plan for what we’ll do to be happy together forever. You know, because that’s like obtainable?

A plan! A plan! How my brain wants to go to a happier future. Late at night it noodles away, adjusting a series of imaginary levers which never seem to balance. People might say: “Just don’t work!” And then I have to say, What if I dialed down work? But then we’d be further behind. I can do the math. It’s like this:

Mortgage + Preschool + Sharecare + Household Expenses = Wha? Huh? Wha? Huh? <suicidal thoughts, thoughts of running away, etc.>

So we’re looking at refinancing and into daycares and au pairs. It’s hella fun shit, let me tell you.

If we moved to a random somewhere that we could afford if I didn’t work, and I found myself more alone as Rafael worked his ass off elsewhere, I’d seriously lose my mind.

Should we move to LA, where he shoots most of the time? Perhaps. I could go SoCal. But do we have to? We loves the Oaktown. And our nearby friends and family. And I really do love my job.

If only I could give up on taming the Modern Parenthood Beast. Meanwhile I’m just sucking its fumes.

You probably know exactly what I should do. “Margot!” You’d say to me, just as I’d say if I were trying to convince you to see the light. “You should just…”

I want to know the answer–but part of me can’t hear it. I’m overwhelmed with information right now. I’m resistent, too, I have to admit. Why? Because any one of the solutions will require change. And associated, usually overblown but you never know, risk.

Change and risk. Easy to recommend, hard to implement.

So if you read this, and see me, don’t bother trying to tell me the solution. Just give me a hug.

Yay. Vulnerability.

I hate it.

Margot