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Wednesday, August 15, 2012

looking for good the stuff

Life is so hectic these days I have to force myself to acknowledge this is the good time.  I should stop waiting for the next good thing to happen and bask in the good stuff that's all around me at the moment.  I have a good job, though I might not have it for much longer.  How many people can say they've worked on a show like "Smash?"  I've got one season and almost three season two episodes under my belt, my mom is still alive and kicking and my girls are so, so, so wonderful.

I asked to job share yesterday and right now I'm waiting for that to be finalized.  A biopsy last week confirmed my mom's cancer has returned.  She's determined to start another course of chemo but I don't think any doctor is optimistic about it's success.  Her platelets are too low for chemo so they've been giving her injections to help boost them.  I don't know how long they'll let her have chemo and when she has to stop, that's going to be crushing for her.

But we're not there yet, so this is the good stuff.

The girls have been staying with their father since July 29.  My former New York babysitter is watching them about 45-50 hours per week until August 31st.  She loves my girls and they're having a fairly good time with her so this is some seriously good stuff.  My work schedule doesn't allow me much time with time.  It's Wednesday and I haven't seen them since Sunday because we've started before they wake up and ended after they're bedtime.  In some ways, it's almost more painful knowing they're so close and yet I can't see them because my work schedule is such a grind.  I will see them tomorrow but we only have a half hour for lunch and it might be the toughest shooting day on our schedule so it's going to be very stressful.

But for 30 minutes, I will feel those little arms around me and this is good stuff.

This past Saturday night, I brought the girls back to the tiny room in my friend's apartment that I use while working in New York City.  In preparation, I bought tape and attached one of Eliza's paintings and a card she made for me on the wall.  I washed the sheets of the full sized mattress that rests on the floor.  I did laundry and took out trash.  At night, Eliza sprawled across the bed, holding me tightly while she eased Elena onto the comforter on the floor beside the mattress.  When your mattress is on the floor, it's not much of a fall so Elena seemed pretty comfortable on the comforter.  In the morning, when Eliza got up to go to the bathroom, I rolled over to find Elena managed to roll herself back on the bed.  It was 6:15, way too early for both girls to be up, especially when I hadn't been able to get them to bed until 10p or so.  But Elena grinned like a maniac and I felt happy, waking up with my girls for the only morning last week, exhausted but elated in that way you can only be after a sleepless night spent when you're falling in love.

Every day I find another reason to fall in love with my girls.  But with work being such a time suck and the job itself being somewhat stressful, my ultra quick weekends with the girls have become a real chore.  They're clingy, agitated, tired and whiney.  I find myself gritting my teeth and begging my inner Gods for patience I've somehow lost.  It's as if my job has devoured any patience I might have and left me with less then a trickle for the two people who matter most to me.  As they jumped on the mattress in this small room we shared that happens to be five flights up so it's hard to leave and come back, I found myself wondering how I'd get through that exhausting Sunday with them.

Stop feeling like this, I said to myself as they trampled over me on the bed, the sole place to sit in this room.  This is your short time with them.  It's precious, they're happy, enjoy it.  Stop looking for the good stuff, this is it.

Hopefully it will work out and my employers will let me job share so I can be with my girls for two weeks out of the month.  I can be around for my Mom more and reconnect with some of that patience I find in such dismal supply at the moment.  Because this is what it's about for me.  While I don't want to commit financial suicide, I have to do whatever it takes to make sure I stay a good mom.

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