Midnight Drives and Intuition

Star darkness.

“Look honey, up there, at the stars,” I said. I could hear the Puget Sound lapping less than 50 feet away from the cabin, as I loaded the wheelbarrow full of my haphazardly packed items. Did I really need to bring home this pillow? Could it be sacrificed the Gods of State Parks and Midnight Ear Infections?

I knocked on the cabin next to me, “Dad? Dad? He’s sick, can you help.”

The mismatched trio. One headlamp. One wheelbarrow. A purse, and some extra bags, holding hands up the long steep and winding hill to the car.

“I’ll text when I get home. I might stop at a hospital along the way if he doesn’t go to sleep. I was afraid this was going to happen.”

Four days earlier I had taken Potamus in for a chest cold checkup. Doc said that it’d clear up on its own in the next few days, and if it didn’t, come back in. I had gone because this was exactly what I was worried about: the midnight drive home from camping. I guess no amount of interventions can influence karma, the Universe, or the way things are supposed to be?

I pulled out of the state park into the island darkness. No GPS to guide me. No daylight to illuminate landmarks. A wing and a prayer. The evening too far gone for even Coast to Coast radio.

Everything smelled like garlic, and puke, and dribbles of urine. There was coughing, and choking, and my panicked “are you okay? tell me you’re okay,” as I hurtled 70 miles per hour down the freeway, coming to a screeching halt at the fortuitous rest area. New change of clothes. The thought: in nine months this will be my new normal. The zombie-like decision making, where I’m so tired I’m not even mad (which says a lot, because I’m often awoken like a bear), and all I can think is “please be okay.”

Where did this motherhood strength come from? Was it always there? Was it bestowed when he was born, like a gift from the Good Fairies?

I admire Boof, who didn’t freak out, when I unexpectedly barged into the bedroom at 6am and said, “I’ve been driving since 4. I need a shower and to sleep. Can you sit in the car with him. He finally fell asleep after puking.”

Eventually we dozed together, the babe and I. And now we’re heading to the doctor…

What motivates you?

There have been times in my life where I have been more or less self-motivated to do a lot of work. Most of those times where I was overly motivated, it was because a lack of self-confidence in myself and a worry that I was going to be canned at any second. Times where I have been less-than motivated have usually been out of rebellion because of micro-management. I don’t always like to be told just to DO something, just to DO it. Ya know?

But in this job, I have quite a lot of autonomy and am able to do a lot at my own discretion. There are a few tasks when I am in the office on Mondays/Wednesdays that I am supposed to get done, like advising students and getting progress reports done, etc. The challenge is, I am working mostly alone, which isn’t my strong suit. I like doing things as a team, or at least being around others to bounce ideas off each other. Sitting alone in my office (yes, I’ve graduated from cubicle to my OWN (shared with my co-teacher) office), which is sometimes more isolating than helpful (except for student meetings). The challenge with this job, though, is that there is also not a lot of direction. I don’t actually have a job description, per se. The way I was hired was all sorts of weird (the job was posted for Tues/Thurs teaching. Then, when they offered me the job they told me about the Mon/Wed advising for hourly. Granted, because of my friend I HAD known that would be the gig, but still, it all seems shady to me).

I have drive and ambition and when I get to work I get overwhelmed with the different things I could be doing, and end up facebooking or looking at pinterest, or mostly just surfing around getting distracted. I don’t necessarily know what to do. At home I talk with Boof about it, and I get super excited and motivated to do things, to make a plan or a proposal for a method of advising or do something, but at work I slide to the lowest common denominator, which is pushing the food around on our plate pretending that we are eating. It was like this in sports, when I played on a team and we were playing a good team, I would rise to the challenge. But if we were playing a sloppy team, we tended to play less well. Now I don’t give myself enough credit, as I did see about 7 students today, even if only for a few minutes at a time, and have been prepping for class tomorrow, but I wish I was working on some type of project, and that I could be motivated daily to do it!

What motivates you when those around you don’t seem to be doing anything? I don’t want to be an overachiever or put so much on my plate that I am overworked, but I don’t want to just sit around doing nothing.

Thoughts?