Dear Idaho, part 2

Dear Idaho,

Today is a big day for you. I know it may not seem like it right now, but it's a really, really good day for you, too. I know you feel bullied and victimized by those of us who don't join in your rallying cry of "One woman! One man!" I know you're scared that the values you hold dear are falling by the wayside as we twirl our way to freedom. Shh. I know.

To borrow a great line from a neat guy: It gets better.

It's really going to be okay. And instead of being okay for just some Idahoans, now it's going to be a little more okay for all Idahoans.

Listen: Gay people are getting married all over the country. They're getting married in lots of other countries, too. No heterosexual married couples have imploded. It's not ruining our families or our country. Why would gay marriage possibly be a threat? Why would it be any more threatening for two same sex people to say, "Hey, we love each other, and we want to make a giant, public commitment to that effect in front of our families and friends?" than it is when opposite sex people do it? I'll tell you what's a threat to marriage: Boredom. Familiarity. Disrespect. Violence. Drug abuse. Pictionary. Eating the entire box of Thin Mints before your partner even gets one.

Idaho, you love families. You love love. You love parties. You love presents. You even love those horrible, chalky little pillow mints people often have at weddings. And I'm pretty confident that you love being right, and embracing freedom, and flipping the goddamn double bird to anybody who tries to tell you what to do. This is a big win for you. Come on, let's celebrate.

TV time

I don't watch a lot of television these days. I'm pretty behind on most everything except Sherlock, I'm only caught up there because there's only three episodes per series.

Recently, the spouse and I got a streaming plan so we can watch more than Idaho Public Television and NBC. I know everyone else got a streaming plan around 10 years ago. Shut up. At least we got there, right? Anyway, we got this streaming plan, and now we have a whole bunch of available television and movies that I haven't seen because of being about 6 years behind on television as a whole, so that's very exciting. I can catch up on Oscar winners and horror movies and all things Attenborough (minor aside: I have a crush on David Attenborough's voice. Just the voice.). So what, you may ask, am I watching? What indeed:

How I'm destroying my brain sans chemicals

Am I a better person for watching this? Oh, no. Is it improving my mind? Hell, no. It is improving my mood, though. Also it makes me a little sad that I never saw Dawson's Creek.  It's a little better than cotton candy and a little worse than chocolate milk for your brain. It's like zucchini bread: it sounds healthy, but it's basically just cake. But there's only two seasons, so I'll probably have a chance to bounce back from it before next semester begins.

On exams, guilt, and plumbing

Let's see here...

The good:
I still have finals this semester, but I've finished my HESIs. The HESI (Health Education Systems, Inc.) exams are standardized tests that my program requires each semester. The ones we take are specialized exams for a particular subject: this semester we did maternity/pediatrics and our medical/surgical exams. The med/surg exam is supposed to highly correlate to the scoring on the NCLEX board exam we have to take for licensure, and it is also sort of my worst subject, so I spent the two weeks prior to the exam making myself physically sick with anxiety. In between bouts of panic, I studied for it. And now all is well! I did well on both exams, and in fact pretty much  aced the med/surg exam, surprisingly enough. So on the one hand, yay for me! But on the other hand, I used up all the fucks I had to give on the HESIs, so now I'm having a hard time getting myself motivated to study for the actual final exams.

The bad:
There's no bad! I had to get a plumber out here to fix my backed-up sinks, but they came! It's done! (Thanks, Caleb and Phillip at Viking Sewer and Drain!) I even got a new faucet out of the deal, so it's all rainbows and kittens except for the bill. I've got to get a new washing machine, as ours is slowly making its way to to the great appliance store in the sky, but that will be managed before the end of summer. 

The ugly:
It's two about three weeks before I start my internship, and I could not be more excited. This program is going to be fantastic for me: great experience, hands-on learning, and I even get paid! It's wildly thrilling and humbling to have been accepted, and I know it's going to be career-making for me, but I can't shake the feeling that I'm making my way at the expense of my kid. She'll be full-time at her day care starting this summer, since I'll be full-time at my internship. She loves her "school" and is getting so much out of her time there, but I can't quite shake the feeling that I should be at home with her all the time, planning outings and putting together crafts from Pinterest and basically being a combination of Mary Poppins and June Cleaver. I feel like a total dick about this, because it's such a non-issue. I feel guilty for making a choice to work outside instead of making her my work. I feel guilty for having her spend so much time with other people when her childhood is so short, because I should be grabbing every moment and enjoying every second I have with her. But the honest truth of the matter is that I enjoy my time with her more when there's less of it.

I've spent the first 3 years of her life home with her. It's been invaluable for both of us, and if I could do it over again, I absolutely would. But I can't say that I enjoyed my time as a full-time housewife/mom. It actually sucked. Well, that's not true. I had a lot of fun here and there, but overall it's not an area where I excelled. I like the cooking part. I hate the cleaning part. I don't want to spend all day doing laundry. The few times I managed to have an entirely clean house were a whole lot less satisfying than I think they should have been, considering the effort I had to put in to get there, and then about 20 minutes later you'd be hard-pressed to believe I'd done anything. It was exhausting. I felt cranky and overworked, overwhelmed and under appreciated. If I'd had a boss, I would have been fired. Instead, I just felt like a failure. Isn't staying home full-time what you do when you have kids? Isn't it was I'm supposed to want? I don't want it. What kind of mom does that make me?

Honestly, I think it probably makes me pretty normal. And there is a part of me that thinks my family will be better served long-term by seeing me do something I love, making a difference in our community, and being an example of a leader and a strong, intelligent woman than they would be watching me swear while I circle impotently round and round the house trying to sweep up all the dog hair. I know that there are parents who don't have the support I've had. People who aren't able to make the choices I'm making, and who may wish the biggest problem they had was some ludicrous guilt they pile onto themselves. But there you have it.