And if you’ve ever watched Desperate Housewives, you’re probably groaning right now. Super judgemental, emasculating, perfect and perfectly annoying Bree?
I really don’t think I’m that bad. I’m certainly not that perfect, though I have a streak of perfectionism a mile wide, which means I’m constantly disappointing myself. Before I started dying my hair blonde, I had her red (though perhaps not quite so flaming). I like to throw dinner parties, and I cross stitch and embroider and sew. I believe in trying to make life beautiful when you can, which seems to be Bree’s goal as well. I know great tips about how to get stains out, know how to make my own cleaning products, and I recycle. I would garden if I didn’t live in a walk-up apartment. I dust, and I look after the people I care about, and I sometimes can be seen flitting around in the kitchen in my scarlet apron.
What I really am, is someone that’s quite unusual these days; a housewife without kids. While stay-at-home moms are still out there, the career-less wife who keeps house all day is truly an endangered species. I’m the only one I know, and the people I know all assume I’m just taking some time off, before I go back to work. From a practical point, that may end up being true, but it’s not necessarily a major goal of mine.
How did I end up here? Two years ago, my husband and I lost our baby daughter. Shortly after, I lost my job, due to taking too much time off during a complicated pregnancy and subsequent grieving period after losing our little girl. A few months after that, our house burned down. It was an awful lot of hits in a short amount of time (during that same period of time, we were going through a major home reno, our pet rabbit passed away, my cousin passed away, and we lost a beloved cat in our fire. It was a bad time). I was in shock, mentally and physically, and there was no way I was going to be mentally capable of functioning in a new work environment.
After a while, it was just so nice to be able to cook and bake and clean and pursue my hobbies, that working became less and less interesting as a possibility. Unfortunately, during that same period of time I put on an excessive amount of weight. I’ve struggled with weight my entire life, but I’ve never been this big. It’s kept me from wanting to go back to work as well, because I deal with a lot of shame about my body. I’ve been working on changing both my body and my attitude this year, so we’ll see where that takes me. We’ll see where life takes me, perhaps.
No comments:
Post a Comment