As most of you know, our Big Daddy resigned from his restaurant manager job a few weeks before Thanksgiving. This was not in our plans - long or short term. It was not on our schedule, nor was it even a remote thought. In fact, Jeremy was shocked I had even spoken the words "maybe it's time to just resign".
I can't share with you the discussions we had or the details behind them but, I can tell you there were many days he went to work at 4:00PM and didn't get home until after 5:30AM. Oftentimes he'd drive someone home who didn't have a vehicle or they were just so busy it took longer to clean up. As I was saying, he'd come home at 5AM, sleep for 2 hours, get up with Jacob and I to get us to work and school, then try to sleep. On top of all this he had conference calls to attend, not to mention the texts, emails and phone calls all the day long only to go back into the store for the 4PM shift. On these days, he would only see Jacob and I for the hour in the morning. I haven't even touched on working the weekends, the late night cleaning parties, the lack of competent people, the call-ins, the no-shows, or the general public complaining about every single teeny tiny thing. Oh, there is so much, I could go on and on!
When I said "maybe it's just time to resign", I had all of these things (and more) on my mind. I was the married single parent, always waiting at home for the last nine years. I was the one going and doing it all, everything - alone. We missed so many family functions, holidays and so much family time. I knew in my heart it was time for him to go.
We wrote his resignation letter and sent it in on Friday morning. That was it. It was all over. 15 years and his restaurant career was done. Sadly with little to show for it besides a terribly sore hip, bruised pride, and pure exhaustion. The next few days/weeks, I watched this new man emerge from my husband's body. This man was a little more patient, with a touch of extra kindness and he had some pep in his step. I hadn't seen this side of him in a long time. I had missed him. I had forgotten.
Jeremy was home for the holidays for the first time ever. In fact, all total he was at home for almost 2 months. Those 2 months made enormous little changes in our home, our family and our marriage. He's finally caught up on his 9 years of never getting enough sleep! He's home in the evenings and on the weekends with us and we can function as one family, together. Not as 2 single parents fighting for time together and apart.
Big Daddy has started a new job. It's different, it's not retail, it's less hours and less pay of course but, his days of working 18 hour days are done. We're planning camp outs in the backyard, fires in our fire pit and hopefully some late night swimming in our pool. I'm hoping for a little new porch sitting and just watching the world go by...WITH my husband (for a change).
It's not where we planned to be at this stage of life but obviously, planned or not, where we needed to be.
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