Purpose

One for the Team

When 21-year-old Zach and I were first laying out our real, grown-up plans for life as an “us”, I slowly learned it wasn’t all as magical as I had always imagined it. We’d dated for seven years on and off and he (finally) found the gumption to ask me to marry him after an old lady hit him with his car and he decided he could use the insurance money to buy me an engagement ring.

It was time to make the choices that would lay the brick work and the foundation for our life together after college graduation. 
Zach would start law school and I would… well… what exactly was I good at, again? I had attended a career fair at OHIO State and met with a recruiter for Kohl’s Department Stores who took an interest in me for their management in training program. Though it wasn’t what I wanted, it was going to get me the-one-thing I really wanted more than anything at that time: the chance to start my life with ZJB. Me having a j-o-b would allow us to get married, buy our first home, and send Zach to law school in the fall. So, without hardly considering any alternatives, I took one for the team.

And, I hated it. Like, hated everything about the job. I questioned why my degree couldn’t help me land something I enjoyed. Why hadn’t I found something more professional with a schedule that allowed me more time with my new husband? And the most unfortunate part was that I began to resent Zach and his flexible college-like schedule. While I was on my feet for 9 hour shifts late into the night helping coworkers merchandise sweaters or customers load vacuums into their cars, I envisioned Zach at home with our new puppy on his lap and playing video games or studying for his classes. Of course he missed me, too, and of course he hated that I didn’t like my job, but this was the choice we made.

Fast-forward 7 years and add 10 pounds, stretch marks, floppy boobs, hemorrhoids, and a hormonal imbalance to that same girl… I still feel like I’ve kept taking one for the team. Before you start to see me as only whining or complaining, I probably need to admit that I found pregnancy to be a gift 90% of the time. Feeling those kicks inside me while I sang to or chatted with our unborn babies was an experience I’ll never forget. I feel very fortunate to have been able to carry three healthy babies. But, of course it came with a lot of discomfort and sacrifice. As women, I don’t think we talk about that enough. Not the complaining, that’s not helpful. But, that there’s a yin and a yang to everything, right? It’s not an Instagram story reel of happiness and perfectly positioned pancakes. And without the support of my husband, I would’ve had a hard time before, during, and after my pregnancies. He was my rock and comfort through any of the tough stuff. Though, at the end of the day, my body was the vehicle that got our three gorgeous boys here; that was my role on the team. He may wear that stress in his memory, but I wear it physically.

So, I better stop here before I go on and tell you: Zach is truly a 50/50 partner. He knows every secret and all my unbecoming ailments. He’s seen me at my very worst and at my very best. I openly share my feelings with him (95% of the time; you know, I have to keep him guessing after all of these 18 years together). He is my very best friend. The point of this is to say he is worth every single sacrifice, ever. And, I know he’d do the same for me; he has done the same for me.

But this new season we’re in is really, really challenging. Like, probably one of the hardest, so far. Being here for him after he’s lost his job has brought on a heartache I hadn’t yet known. Because I truthfully can’t take one for the team in a way that makes a marked improvement for him and his job prospects. It’s all on him. 

And apparently, the job search looks quite different for him than it ever has for me. Apparently, it means LOTS of golf and working out or drinks while networking. All the while I am still working full-time during the day or being the one called to the ER to help one of our sons get their first stitches or cleaning the bathrooms and doing our laundry in my “off-hours” and also helping to organize or ensure that our boys do their hybrid learning during this covid-19 time. Does he still do the dishes every day and take out the trash? Yes, because, as I’ve said, I picked a very, very good partner. But I do feel overworked and maybe under-appreciated during this time.  
So, only a few weeks in, I’m already asking ‘How long is this soul-searching, career-finding going to take?’

Seeing the cobwebs billowing next to our vents and having ‘had it’ in our messy home, I got up the courage to ask him for a favor, the other day. “You don’t have to, but I was wondering since this is your first official week home, would you mind doing a little cleaning for us?”

“Well sure! I could probably do that,” he said while finishing loading the dishwasher.

“If I left you a list…” I ventured.

“That seems a little authoritarian,” he said while turning around to face me.

“Well, the list would be just so you know what I was talking about when I say ‘cleaning’. I’m not saying you have to check-mark what’s completed, but I was needing some help moving furniture away from walls and vacuuming behind things where all this dust has gathered over the last year since I’ve made the time to clean that well,” I explained.

“Couldn’t we just pay someone to do all that?” He questioned. 

Uh-oh. Here we are again at our same argument. “Well, if I was the one to lose my job, would you be o.k. if I asked if we could pay someone to do our cleaning? I mean, shouldn’t we be saving money?” I was a little annoyed.

“So, if I had a job, this wouldn’t even be a conversation?” He was annoyed now, too.

“Right, but you don’t have a job and I was asking because this would mean a lot to me since I’ve been feeling like the one carrying us around here while you make time to figure things out.” 

Welp… I had hit it. His nerves were struck. He looked very sad, and he walked away from me.

Do I feel badly that I said what I did? Actually no, it was the truth. For us, the truth just needs to be said. And, for most of my life, I’ve buried what I was feeling until it exploded. But, I do feel badly that I hurt him. How I said what I said was not right. We both went to bed without saying much to each other. We usually wait for the sun to rise, however long that takes, and then we try talking, again. The sun brings us a reckoning.  

Zach is not wrong in the way he is going about this abrupt new chapter we’re entering. He already has a few job prospects, so that is further validation. But, it is totally not the way I’d be doing it!

Instead of networking and taking time for myself, if I were the one to lose my job I’d become the craziest (albeit amazing) homemaker you’d ever seen! This house would be sparkling from top-to-bottom, the kids would be in a true routine, there’d be homemade everything all-day-every-day, etc. But I’d 100% neglect myself. I’d hide from the root of what I feared the most. 

Interestingly, whether it’s Zach or me or you, I think we’d be wrestling with the same question: How am I going to provide for my family? If I don’t do so through my job, then what’s left?

So, here we are in ‘the yang part of life’… or is it the yin? And while we’re in this valley, we have choices to make. We can avoid what we fear or we can face what we fear. But, most importantly – as many of my readers have already reminded me – we have each other. So, whatever we chose, we go that direction together. This team will move forward. It will be challenging, but sometimes the hard things can be the good things.