“Why Don't You Just Quit”!!
Mornings are a hustle. Up at 5:00 am. Have to walk and feed the dog. Spend a few minutes meditating, making some space for creativity before I get the kids up. Then the hard work starts… wake up my 6 and 12-year-old kids. This process takes at least 15 -20 minutes, make breakfast (most days that’s a fruit cup and cereal). Battling with my almost 13-year-old son to stop taking long morning showers and prepping his curls. Waking up my 6-year-old daughter at now 6:00 am, as she takes off her sleeping mask and says- it’s still dark and put the blanket back over her body! Now at this point, I’m yelling (or neighbors might say screaming) at the kids, “LET’S GO… I HAVE TO GET TO WORK!” Does my screaming move the kids along? Nope… the only living being that it bothers is Major, my 6-month puppy that we added to the family a few months ago (that’s another story for another time). Now with all of this yelling, Major scurries in his X-Pen as if he’s thinking, I better not bite her shoe this time; I’ll just lay here and pretend to sleep. The response to my yelling as I’m trying to get the kids to hurry up so I can be to work on time, is them yelling back at me, “ WHY DON’T YOU JUST QUIT”!
The short return to the way things were after 1 and half years of remote working and learning has been a disaster! I am almost positive the morning I described above is not unique only to me. My expectations are somewhat unrealistic. Everyone must wake up happy, quickly get dressed, eat breakfast, and have a calm car ride on the way to school, and work with lovely music in the background, which is not realistic. Not now. And probably not ever. The simplistic answer to my yelling in the mornings, because the kids are not on my timeline, made me stop to think… just quit? Don’t they understand I’m dependent on this job to provide them shelter, food, clothes, health insurance, and not to mention my Stitch Fix monthly subscription? How can they say “Just Quit”!? Aren’t they grateful that I have a job? Of course not. They are kids who just want their mommy to stop yelling. But guess what? I WANT TO QUIT!! If anything, the pandemic allowed most of us working parents to slow down the craziness of morning routines (still working on a habit). I mean, it’s now October, my son is still trying to adjust to getting up at 5:30 am to leave the house so he wouldn’t be late for 7:45 homeroom. One morning, we noticed his pants were on backward during our lovely morning commute. The adjustment to these early mornings will take a while. Hopefully, he remembered to put them on the right way when he got to school.
My point is, obviously, quitting is not an option right now. Although I desperately wish it was. I also want my life to be a little easier, and stress levels aren’t so high. My dream would be to create a business that I can take with me anywhere in the world. And one day, maybe the complex reality of leaving a 9–5 could turn into something as simple as “Why Don’t You Just Quit”!