ailbhe | My So-Called Life (Reply)

I work min. 8 hours, usu. 9 hours (ie through lunch), often 10+ hours, Mon-Fri in a job at which I am excellent in most ways. I get a lot of respect for it from powerless people. It is exhausting and emotionally draining and when I get home I flake. I have no energy to see people.

This job requires me to learn to drive, something I have ethical or moral problems with, and which takes up min. 1 hour a week of my free time (hs to be at weekends as am too comatose during the week) and in practice longer because I find the lessons need emotional preparation and come-down time.

In addition, I am taking ballroom dancing lessons, which take one hour a week, are not emotionally draining, and probably put moreinto my life than they remove.

Also, I am doing an Open University course. I'm not doing as well as I should be, because my Study Time is my lunchbreak at work, which usually doesn't happen. When I don't get a lunchreak, I'm way too tired and hungry to study in the evening. This is not good.

I have, however, managed to read almost half what I need to for my Study Group tonight (two hours) and it only took 3 hours or so. Maybe the Study Group will be helpful enough that I won't need to spend so long reading in future (Study is new to me - I'm used to reading, understanding, remembering, regurgitating).

I still haven't sent out all the wedding invitations or done a check on the hotels so that I can send people a list with brief descriptions, maps and locations. Rob thinks that this will all be irrelevant and unnecessary but I happen to know that at least some people expect it and that they all think it's my job to organise, not his.

I also feel guilty for not cooking enough or doing enough housework, leaving it all to Rob. This in spite of the fact that I do all the grocery shopping and remembering what needs to be done, all the organisational stuff, all the reminding. He works from home, 3 days a week, and in London the other two days. He quite likes his job and usually has energy left at the end of the day. He is also paid about three times what I am. We both dislike the fact that he does more than 50% of the housework; we seem unable to internalise the logic that his life is basically easier and less fraught andanyway I do most of the organisation of housework leaving the non-thought-requiring purely physical bits to him.

I am still under less stress that I would be if I was attempting to find alternative employment.