Hi.
I haven't been here for a really long time. I'm not even going to look to see how long; there's no point.
The job has been a complete roller coaster. I am exhausted. The job on its own is challenging, frustrating, some days too much than I can take, and then adding in driving an hour each way to work, the effect my being gone so much has effected Fry, my general insecurities, my penchant for caring too much and laying awake in the middle of the night stressing about work... it's been a bad time. Bad enough that we decided that, in the case that Stéphane didn't get his transfer, I would quit, because the stress on our family is just. too. much.
Poor Fry. He's four now, in his second year of pre-school, and acting out all the time. It took us a little while to realize that he was acting out because I was suddenly gone from his life. I was always the one that brought him to school, picked him up for lunch, brought him back, and got him at the end of the day, most of the time. Now I barely see him in the morning (sometimes he's still asleep when I leave!) and we only have a couple of hours together when I get home, including making dinner and getting him to bed.
We knew this was going to be hard, but in my mind it would be a temporary sacrifice for making a better life for our family - moving to a bigger town, both of us making decent salaries so that we can travel, save for future projects, giving Fry bigger and better opportunities for his future as well. But this morning was hard - so hard. I'm home sick, his teacher has been out for two weeks (another stable adult who has been a super calming and focusing influence in his life), and Stéphane had to take him to school kicking and screaming. It completely broke my heart and I'm crying just thinking about it.
We got the good news this week that Stéphane got his transfer. This weekend he'll ask for the schools where he would like to be placed (he'll be targeting the Greater Reims area) and in June we'll know where to hunt down an apartment. In the meantime we need to start figuring out what we're going to do with this apartment and preparing to move. And I need to figure out a way to explain to my darling boy that all this upheaval and change will be good for us, that Mommy being gone all the time is temporary, that soon we'll be the close-knit family we've always been.
In four/five more months, we'll get our lives back. Summer can't come fast enough.
