Balance

In order to deal with my day-to-day responsibilities, I have to employ a great deal of balance. It took months after I began working to get a good balancing act system in place. As my work schedule shifted, so did the other aspects of my life so everything could move like a fluid water balloon jelly filled plastic bag cohesive unit.

It was pretty rocky at the beginning. I began working when my son – a.k.a. littleman – was nine months old. I had only held a part time job during the three month period prior to that. My new job/career meant daycare and a whole slew of issues I had yet to encounter. First, there was the issue of getting littleman too and from daycare. As my job is in another county, and takes me approximately 35 minutes (with no traffic) to get there, my husband – a.k.a. geekboy – got stuck with graciously volunteered to provide transportation. The days when I’ve had to take littleman in usually involve getting to work late and/or leaving work early. The next step was for me to learn my job. While I had done legal work clerking after law school, this was different. I had my own case load and I was responsible for managing that case load and all the fun that goes with it (I’ll spare you the details – in this post at least). It took me a while. There were a lot of reasons why. Mostly though, it was because there wasn’t adequate training after all the state wide budget cuts, and the person who was “training” (and I use that term very loosely) me had no idea what he was doing either. After I was able to get the appropriate guidance, training and practice, I became much more efficient at my job. In the beginning though, I worked late a lot and brought a lot of work home with me. There were many nights when geekboy fed, bathed and put littleman to bed. There were days at a time when the only glimpse I would get of my son was when I would peek in on him when he was sleeping. That was a truly heartbreaking time.

Eventually work did calm down and I was able to get the hang of my schedule. There was a time when I was working 40 hours a week (instead of the 50+ I started out at). Then the changes at work happened. With my job you are assigned to a division. You deal with the same defendants, public defenders and judge all the time. Well, I was reassigned to a different division. This happens all the time. It used to happen more often, but it’s a good rule of thumb that once you get comfortable with your situation, expect that things are going to change. They did. At first I was thrown for a loop, but I recovered quickly.

Then, things changed again when our judge changed. This made my life more difficult. The judge that came in was a brand new judge. She had prior experience in the Public Defender’s Office and had knowledge of the Juvenile system. That was a huge plus as she knew the applicable law and procedures. The down side to her was that she was very thorough. Now that is a good thing, in that it will make her a better and more knowledgeable judge later, but it was less than pleasant at the time. By less than pleasant, I mean that thoroughness takes a great deal of time. Time that kept me away from my office. I know wah, wah. Well, the time that I normally spent in my office, which was now being spent in the courtroom, had to be made up somewhere.

And at that point I had come full circle. I had more work than I had time to do it. I had to weigh my options and figure out how to get my life back in balance. The first and completely implausible option was to go to my new judge and tell her to speed things up a bit. Yeah. Not a wise career move for a brand new attorney who wants to keep her reputation. The last thing I needed was for my reputation to become the “girl who knows it all and isn’t afraid to tell the judge how to run her courtroom.” Not a good option. Chuck it in the bin.

Option two. Stay late until all the work is done. This was a crap option for so very many reasons. First, I wouldn’t get to see littleman. Second, geekboy was back in school two nights a week and had another obligation on a third night. We would have had to hire an evening babysitter for those three nights. Third, by that time of day/night my brain was shot and I was completely unable to function properly at work. Terrible option. Chuck it in the bin.

Option three. Go in early. Get the backlog of work done prior to heading to court and leave on time. Downside? Wake up at 4:00 a.m. Get to work when it is still dark out. Force myself to become a morning person. Yuck. Upside? Tuck in littleman every night of the week. That last upside completely obliterates all the downsides. Completely viable option. No bin chucking.

Option four. Take up Wicca and cast a spell to lessen the amount of time I spent in court and increase the amount of time I could spend in my office. Ehh. Not really my thing. Chuck it in the bin.

So, Option three won out. I started waking up at an ungodly hour. I became a morning person. I began to function on a higher level in the wee hours of the morning than i ever had before. It was amazing in a very sucky way. I was able to get most of my work done and I was able to leave work at 5:00 p.m.

So after I figured the work thing out, I had to manage the home thing. It took a bit of practice, but I eventually got the schedule down. This was a good thing for myself and littleman. The thing I have in common with toddlers is that we both thrive on schedules. Structure works. I had a schedule for the evenings down pat. And I was even able to start going to bed early. I was getting between 6 and 7 hours of sleep most nights, and, occasionally, 8 whole hours. A downside. I rarely got to see geekboy (which could also be an upside on occasion).

My day was full. Extra jam packed. I had two fulltime jobs and I worked from the minute I got out of bed until the minute I got back in again. My schedule looked a little something like this:

4:00 a.m. – Alarm goes off

4:01 a.m. – 5:00 a.m. – Fight with the snooze button and wonder why strange sounds that i was unable to turn off kept invading my dreams

5:00 a.m. – Get dressed, put on make-up, take the dogs out, make my lunch, make geekboy’s lunch, peek at my sleeping angel

5:30 a.m. – 6:00 a.m. – Leave for work

6:00 a.m.-ish – 5:00 p.m. – Work

6:30 p.m.-ish – Get home, take dogs out, start dinner, wrestle with littleman, yell at the dogs, serve dinner, explain to littleman the difference between throwing and eating dinner

7:00 p.m. – Clean up after dinner & hose littleman down

7:30 p.m. – Bathe littleman

8:00 p.m. – Put littleman to bed

8:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. - Take a shower and get ready for bed

I rarely sat down to watch TV on those nights, nor did I sit down at the computer. I went to bed. I would be exhausted beyond belief. Then, it would start all over again the next day.

I really hate to call the time that I spent with littleman work. It is work in the negative sense, but it is work. That kid can really exhaust a person. I love every minute I get to spend with him, but every minute is still a minute I am wearing my “I’m a responsible mommy” vest and name tag. It’s a second job. Well, it’s the first job really, but you know what I mean.

Now, yet again, the balance will be thrown out of whack. I was moved again at work. This time from Juvenile over to Misdemeanor. There are things that I will have to learn to do that I have not had any experience with in the 14 months I’ve been at my job. I’ll probably stick with the morning person schedule, since it seems to work for everyone involved. Hopefully, things will calm down and I’ll be able to wake up at a normal time and get to work at a normal hour. I’ll keep my fingers crossed, but I won’t hold my breath. Wish me luck.