I wouldn’t trade Archie for the world. Especially when he guffaws, a gift he gives me every couple days with some timely smiles and a zirbirt to the chin and belly. It’s an honest, crowd-pleasing laugh that sends any troubling thought in my brain out for ice cream. It’s the sound of pure delight, a younger version of what came installed with the Carter model.
Even so, this has been a trying year.
My former girlfriend once told me I’d be dead of a heart attack by 35. It was a casual ribbing aimed at my early obsession with newsletters and general worry, but it was the kind of milestone that I couldn’t let go, a potential omen. Thus, with that innocent jibe, my life sense has been about accomplishing something before I James Dean my circulatory system. My thirty-something decade was meant to be some period of arrival where things start making sense and paying off. But I was always cognizant I may get pulled at halftime.
Learning that we were pregnant around this time last year was a mixed bag. I had some personal goals to write Great American novels and screenplays; I had a job that was entering a crucial year where things would be wrapped up in time for new challenges in the company. We had, as always, money woes that bely my income. And we had a toddler beginning school. I was ecstatic about the new life we were creating in Amy but apprehensive about pretty much everything else. Including stress-induced heart failure.
Work has not been easy. I have gone from the lone little Dutch boy plugging holes in the dam to an afterthought (at least in my mind and workload). Key decisions were made without me, and I felt for the first time last fall like my telecommuting arrangement was a detriment, keeping me from the people and discussions that would shape my future. The final straw came earlier this year when an altruistic move to step down as a development team lead to help get a huge task list completed became an opportunity to be shelved. With the response to that volunteered act, my attitude about work changed pretty dramatically — which included a bought with shingles — and has yet to recover.
The year has also been filled with extended family trauma. In a two-week span last June, I said goodbye to my childhood house (failing to unearth the treasure I buried on the premises as a kid), officially met the significant others of my divorcing parents, got word that their divorce finalized, and then received calls announcing their engagements on successive days. My mom got re-hitched in January; my father will do the same in Buffalo, NY this weekend.
Home life hasn’t been an easy transition, either. I love my family, but it is a big adjustment to add Archie to the mix. One of my wife’s favorite lines is that having one child was described to her as working a 24-hour job; adding a second kid just means working an extra hour each day. The math is accurate. The pregnancy was more difficult because there was always an active little boy with BIG feelings thrown into the mix this time. Carter loves Archie, clearly, but he’s also not pleased about all of the changes. I weaned myself, not altogether on my own volition, of the 70-hour work weeks, but that hasn’t meant more time for my personal to-do list.
I’m more tired now than when I was “just” up all night writing code. My optimal sleep time is between 4-8am. That overlaps with Carter’s desire to wake up and need to go to Hoosier Courts in the morning. Since July, I’ve temporarily migrated out of my own comfortable king-sized bed into the queen-sized mattress on Carter’s floor, helping him go to sleep, stay asleep and wake up in the morning. Since Archie arrived, I’ve also increased my morning duties to tote the boy to preschool from two days to five. He and the rest of my family also need me more in the early evenings, before Carter goes to bed. It’s exhausting.
Now, by my own choice, I’m sleeping on the couch. I’m in no-man’s land, transitioning from transitions. I want Carter to get used to the idea of waking up alone and being OK knowing I’m in a room nearby. I also want my light-sleeping wife to not have to deal with the amplified breathing of our eldest through a room monitor. I stood firm when my dog, Snooks, non-verbally urged me to sleep on the living room floor. Even that was difficult given that her companion, Cleo, was put to sleep in November.
I’ve perfected the role of martyr. Now it is time for some new challenges.
There is hope across the board. Shingles are gone, and there is a new sheriff in town at work. Gene is everything I would want to be, plus extras, if I had the VP of IT gig. I’m still a man without a country at TicketsNow, but that’s something a few heart-to-heart conversations should address. The couch experiment hasn’t freaked Carter out; we’ll see how he responds after a couple disruptive trips this month. The last of the ‘rents re-marriages is being performed this weekend. And I’m only 10 weeks away from surviving being 35.
Now, if only IU would win …