take a deep breath

People say to breathe all the time right?

So we always travel to NYC for thanksgiving with my parents.  I cook the goyishe Christmas meal. This is how we've traditionally managed the separate families who live states away.

Except this morning I received a text from Viking.  "Hey, I may stick around for thanksgiving to be with my dad."

There was a piece of me that was bracing for this. First thanksgiving for my FIL without his wife of 40 years. They traditionally spent it with my brother in law and his wife, but those two are wildcards.

Breathe. Don't type back. Just breathe.

I will not drive the girls myself. No gonna happen, my car is already in poor condition and I can't manage the two screaming kids in the back on a roadtrip by myself. Nope nope nope.

So it's the train or my girls don't see her grandparents. Ok. Get on Amtrak.com and look at the fares.

Jesus. This will cost a fortune and I'm currently carrying a $6000 balance on my credit card that I can't pay down fast enough. Ok, cheapest 6am train it is, I can do this. I can pack up the baby and her sister, a large stroller and one large suitcase. I can do this. My parents would like irritate my husband beyond repair anyways this year.

It will be ok.

Except the fraying is there. This weekend marks my 12 year anniversary - 12 years married, 17 together. A lifetime.  When I first got that text message I was indescribably angry. I'm exhausted. The brunt of household chores fall on me. I'm offered the option of working out after I get the baby down at 7pm, which I've got to say is the worst time in the world to work out because you're tired and then your heartrate jacks up and it's damn hard to fall asleep. And at 7pm I have to first clean the living room up to make space to work out anyways. It's not a great deal.

My nanny informed me that from her daily morning parenting podcast she learned that single mothers have less housework than married ones.  Read that again. Based on the cleaning I do I can totally say this true.

I don't want a marriage frayed from the years of resentment brought on by exhaustion. He's exhausted too. He gets up at 5 to commute 90 minutes to a job he doesn't particularly enjoy. He lost his mom. He's worried about his dad. He shares the responsibility of getting Niblet to her dance classes, to Hebrew school if I'm gone. He cooks some meals and does grocery shopping, (though honestly not as efficiently as I do because he still doesn't know how to meal plan. But he makes his own breakfasts and lunches and that's something).

Breathe.