I miss the human right to have moods. My friends say "Joy, its OKAY to not be happy all the time." But do they really get what this entails? The reprocussions? They do not.
I miss the human right to be ill and have a day off work. God do I wanna call in sometimes. Are my unused vacation days being accrued somewhere?
I miss the human right to sleep and a daily shower.
Like the vast majority of grown-ups, I have someone at home who needs me. A dog. A roommate. Even the jet settiest TV stars seem to have an iguana or something keeping them from true unhindered autonomy. Sometimes I think it is in our nature, to have someone or something that needs us, but mosttimes I think living away from a tribe is unnatural in itself and the root of the problem so there lies the problem right away, no communes in metro detroit, etc.
So If YOU get sick, do you get to "call in"? Do you get to lay on the couch all day? What about if you had major surgery? Do you worry about this kind of stuff?
Sometimes I don't dare try a sport or anything even remotely physical, for fear of the real possibility of a twisted ankle, broken arm, or worse. What would I do?
I think I do not have anyone in my life who could help me out. Is this common?
When I had a c-section, Steves work called him in the second day I was still in the hospital. My friend took my three kids to the movies and cesarland. Steve's parents raked our leaves. My sister, bless her heart, tried to hire me a housecleaning lady, but she turned out to be the laziest most un-helpful hinderance and when I came out at the end of day one with the fact that she did not help at all, and in fact, she made us all feel incredibly indescibably awkward and nervous in our own home, and thanked my sister profusely but asked that the lady not come back, my mom stopped calling me for over 3 weeks because she deduced that since the cleaning lady was of a different racial background than we are, that I therefore taught my children to be racist. But beyond all this initial flurry of drama and bizarre misery, I, like too many other newly postpartum women especially those who have been unmercifully sleep deprived, endured major abdominal surgery, and especially those who have other children at home who need care, was all alone all day long. This is unnaceptable. I could not feel more strongly about any other subject matter. It tears at my soul. this abandoning of new mothers is absolutely unacceptable and across the board unheard of in any other developing, third world or developed nations. But ooooh boy are we shocked and concerned when postpartum psychoses set in, huh...?
What I needed, of course, was my husband--- and this familial support is what we all have a right to, in theory, the free use of the Family and Medical Leave Act. As long as you have over 50 employees at your place of work and you have been there a year or more, you are entitled to up to TWELVE WEEKS unpaid (hey what did you expect this ain't Sweden) leave for anything like birth, caring for a family member, adoption, death, illness, etc. Except if you try to use this, you will most likely get fired.
Makes me wanna sing the star spangled banner just a little more off key at the next ballgame. It will be my secret.
I do hate America. or at least how we treat our women and children and families. Please understand this.Hate is not a family value. This has been a gay support cry for a while but it applies to everyone.
So, with all this knowledge, why would I expect a rally for my imagined recreational sports injuries?
So I am afraid. Afraid to go curling, afraid to roller blade, worried when we sledded. I feel so valued and so terribly vulnerable. For a headstrong experimental feet-first Aries, this is hard for me. I dont want to do the wise thing. I dont want to plan. I hate the Small Details.I want to have a blast. But I worry.
I guess this is true for everyone, we're all one slip on a grape away from utter destituion and ultimate demise.
What would happen to your life if you slipped on the grapes?
and my point:
what can we be doing to prepare for it?
3 comments:
Wow, I just wrote a similar, though much shorter blog about this called "Where is my fu@#!ing village? I'm digging all your blogs, so I went all nutty and added some to my blogroll.
Well, you're doing a great job keeping writing in 4 blogs at once..>I can barely keep up with the one I have! I wish I wrote more...then again, I also with I slept more. =)
Little update:
I have gone sledding two times lately and hurt my back both times. See?
It sucks. Sucks to be old and stiff and sucks to feel like I "cant" have a sick day.
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