A Dead End Street's Just A Place To Turn Around

I learned a long time ago that sadness in women is often anger turned inward. I was aware of a hard coin of resentment in the back of my throat for a few days, but I was unprepared for a wave of sadness that broke today.

For a few weeks I have been working on a tiny consulting project for an investment bank. They've been really cool about me doing it all from home and working around Olivia's nap schedule -- which means my progress moves in fits and starts. Last week I had a deadline to wrap up the project, for which I needed the assistance of an external vendor.

This vendor didn't share my sense of urgency. Didn't return my many calls and emails for 3 days. Deadline missed. CFO at client unhappy. Me, trying to make it better, offered to cut my rate. Client accepted. Wait - huh? How'd I get here?

In the last two weeks I'd missed two days of protected time when Olivia didn't nap at all, and another 3 days taking her to doctor's appointments. I'd been on conference calls with Sesame Street blaring in the background and Olivia crying for a bottle or demanding for me to color with her. One night when I couldn't sleep I'd worked from 11PM to 3AM when the house was quiet and I could concentrate.

On the days when Aaron and I were both at home and trying to work, if there were too many distractions Aaron simply left the house. He'd work or study from a coffee house while I watched the kid and made dinner and tried to finish up this project. And somewhere in all that juggling I got really angry. I don't get to just pick up my laptop and go somewhere quiet when I need to knock out my work. I have to fit it in around everyone else's schedule.

There's prep to getting that 2 - 3 hours of nap-time out of Olivia. We bike to play group, or go to the park, or take Sadie out for walks, so that midday Miss O is tired enough to go down. Otherwise it's a 20 minute catnap and a miserable dinnertime with Olivia decompensating.

I don't know how we got to this circumstance where the default presumption is that I am on kid duty unless I am asleep. It's nothing we ever came to a negotiation about. But I know that the outcome of it is that I regarded my work as less important. Even though my total hours are small, my hourly rate is twice Aaron's. But I tried to implement this project using fractured little bits of time after I'd made dinner and the dishes were put away. After Olivia had her bath and I'd read her a few books. After I shopped for groceries before the store closed because I only have use of the car at night.

It's not as if Aaron has free time. He's commuting in heavy traffic 50 miles each way to work, spending long hours there and then has schoolwork to do. A family to visit with. A dog to walk. And all of this on broken sleep with Olivia getting up 2 -3 times a night lately.

And then after I'd spent two weeks squeezing in pockets of work here and there, three days trying to get this vendor to respond, and another 2 hours this afternoon working with the vendor fixing the issues, in a fit of self-doubt I discounted my work. Gave away money, money that we really need, to try to make it up to the client somehow for this stupid vendor's non-responsiveness. Now I know why I feel so regularly marginalized. I put myself there. I really have lost the plot. Haven't any idea how to get myself back.