Week 3: Identity crisis….

So this week was hard…. Very very hard…. I’ve had some tremendous support from my partner, and one of my wonderful yummy-mummy friends. Starting to heal and get Zen.

I started the week with another piece of consulting work to get on with.

The snow was still falling thick and fast so I got to spend Monday with both me and my partner working from home. It was lovely. There we were in a snuggle-y warm house, with me on conference calls or typing away in the office, and him doing the same from the bedroom. We would commiserate with each other on particularly difficult conversations, and congratulate on moments of genius in our work. It was exactly the kind of career-girl Utopian day I had once dreamt of.

Tuesday I did housework, tended my client, and he worked from home. I got a migraine so took my tablets and had a nap without having to stress about upsetting managers, or weighing up pain of migraine vs. pain of missing work. There was a bit of drama with the car not wanting to start after the snow, but otherwise it was a picture-perfect day in Stepford.

Wednesday I was on client site, and, for the first time since starting our Stepford experience, so was he. He had to stay away Wednesday night and wasn’t back until late Thursday night. Everything went well with the client, and I left them to rave reviews and a flurry of thanks. Just as I was walking out, though, something I wasn’t expecting happened. I asked my client if they thought they’d been needing anything in the next few weeks (fully expecting them to say “oh yes, we’re just working out dates, but we’ll be in touch”) and was told “No, I think that’s it now. Thank you so much for your great work, as always!”.

It was such a nice thing to say. It should have been exactly what I wanted to hear. It means that I can now focus on getting the house together. I should have been really happy. My client was looking at me with a big smile and a look that said “Hooray! You get everything you wanted”. I wanted to be happy. I wanted to be bouncing up and down on the inside. I wanted all of that, but instead I felt like I had just been shoved off a cliff and was plummeting to my imminent doom.

In the cab on the way home the driver asked me “So what do you do” and my still shell-shocked brain started to spin. “What DO I do? Who am I? Oh god, what have I done giving up a great career to play housewife! Who DOES that in the 21^st century?!”. I must have said something reasonable since he continued to chatter away at me amicably for the rest of the ride, but I don’t know what it was.

Then I was home. Alone. With the cat. There was no partner to have dinner waiting on. I couldn’t do any more organising until he was there to go through his things. The dishes were washed. The laundry was done. There was nothing I needed to do. So I sat on the sofa and thought. When I sat down it was light out. When I noticed I was thirsty it was dark. At some point I turned on the tele, and at some point I started to cry. I was so confused and so lost. There were moments of blinding panic, and moments of shame.

Just when I had decided that I had made the biggest mistake of my life and was ready to call my former employer and beg for my job back I spoke to my partner. He listened to me. He asked a few questions about what brought this on; and then he did the most wonderful thing ever: he told me how much he needed me to stay home. My partner explained how knowing I was home to do things like supervise the housekeeper, and do the laundry, order groceries, and cook dinner reduced his stress levels so much that he was feeling better than he had for years. He told me about how much better his back was feeling, how he was able to stop biting his nails, and that was just the beginning.

I had been so caught up in what this change meant for me, that I hadn’t really thought of what it meant to him. I’m sure that sounds horrid, but I had been focusing on what I would do, and what we needed, but not really what he wanted. When we got together one of the things that had attracted us to each other was our ambition. We were both workaholics determined to get ahead, and both clear that personal life would always need to give way to career needs. I think that deep down, I had always assumed he still felt that way and that all this was what I wanted and he was just too nice to say anything else. Knowing that we had both come to value this new lifestyle, and each had selfish reasons for wanting it to succeed somehow made it easier to breathe.

The next night I had my weekly phone date with my super yummy-mummy girlfriend, we’ll call her Super Z. Here’s the condensed version of the conversation:

Me: I’m having an identity crisis.

SZ: Why? Have you suddenly changed in some way?

Me: Maybe. I don’t know how to not work. I don’t know who I am without a job title.

SZ: You know that’s weird, right? You’re still your usual, awesome self. You cook, you write, you play Xbox, speak multiple languages, read, and love cinema. None of that has anything to do with having a job.

Me: Yeah, but it doesn’t count. People judge, and I worry that I’m selling out the feminist cause by packing in my career. It’s just not responsible!

SZ: Oh good grief! I cannot believe that you are going to let other people’s issues, and, frankly, jealousy determine what is or isn’t right for you guys. You’re not in financial difficulty, so there is no issue of responsibility, and it’s not like you couldn’t or wouldn’t go back to work if that changed. Finally, when did feminism mean LESS choices? You picked this for a whole list of reasons. Don’t you owe it to yourself to actually give it a try before you run back to the socially expected option?

Me: Ouch, when you put it like that…. Thanks, Super Z! You’re a genius.

SZ: Yes, yes I am.

During our conversation I managed to organise our medicines, and get a start on the bathroom! With that in mind, I’m charging into Week 4 with my chin up and a determination to give Stepford a full and proper go, for me and for him!

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