Jun 2, 2009

An Exciting Week...

Bit of an exciting week here in the Skerrib house. The Cat Daddy is "out in the field" all week, which is a specifically technical Air Force term meaning "gone." Missiles is one of those career fields where they tell you how good you are in hopes that you won't notice all the crap-work they pile on. This is not to diminish the good work that the Cat Daddy and his cohorts do; because they do their job well. In fact it's because they do their job well that they get picked for the important jobs that take them away from home for a week, which is one of those hard ironies in life. Sort of in the same vein as "no good deed goes unpunished."

I've decided that I don't have to learn to like the Cat Daddy's frequently being out in the field. Granted it would not be a healthy thing for me to go around complaining all the time, especially since the "frequently out in the field" thing will likely continue for a couple of years or more, and making myself miserable about it won't make that time go any faster. There's a whole lot to be said about making the best of things, taking lemons and making lemonade, and all that, but it seems to me that many people try to skip over the bad aspects on their way to making the best of things. They don't talk about the lemons. That, or people don't want to hear about the lemons. Lemonade is much more palatable, I guess.

But then again you have the people who can't seem to stop fixating on the bad, and are determined to be miserable, no matter what good there is to be found. Then it's more like "Gosh, I get it, you have a lot of lemons. Have you considered making some lemonade?"

My catharsis is saying "I hate this job" whenever I feel particularly annoyed by the crap-parts. This might sound incredibly negative, but it helps me to keep perspective. It's easy to get mad at the Cat Daddy when he has to be gone yet again, but the truth is that the Cat Daddy is home whenever possible. "I hate this job," as opposed to "The Cat Daddy sucks" (or any of the varied and extremely unfair phrases that pop into my mind when I'm weary), reminds me of that. And I'm grateful that he has a job, and a fairly secure one at that. I don't want him to quit, or anything. I just don't like the bad parts of it, that's all...

2 comments:

  1. Wow.. your post took me back. I have been where you are so many times.
    It started with Randy being gone for a week just weeks after Shawn was born. Hated getting up in the middle of the night to nurse... being so alone.
    Then he would be gone for weeks on end... for a concert tour... when the kids were little. And this is what is hard for me to realize... we would be lucky to talk maybe once in the two weeks he was gone. Thank God for cell phones.
    So Kerri, know that I feel your frustration... and your attempt at making real good lemonade.

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  2. Well-said about the "gone" part of AF life. It sucks. Plain and simple. Good call on focusing on the job as an object of anger... I'm not always so good at that. And there is something to be said about our fairly stable employment (stupid Kim Jong Il is making sure of that!!!!). Can I get some extra sugar in my lemonade??

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