I left Mr Point Five today.
For an hour.
If I hadn’t, I would have picked the fight from hell and he didn’t deserve that.
I left an hour early for school pick up and sat in the car.
I had a magazine to read, one that I hadn’t managed to do more than skim through the headlines for the past two months, but to be honest I just sat there. I sat with the windows down and breathed in the sunshine and the gum trees. I gazed at the wisps of clouds in the sky and watched the branches dance in the light breeze that kissed my face. I relished the quiet, knowing that there was no chance of being needed. for. anything.
For an hour.
I had tears spring from nowhere. Silently they slid down my face. I’m not sure why.
Exhaustion? Relief? Resignation?
Before I left the house, I felt trapped in the mundaneness of being a SAHM. Every day is like groundhog day where we live. There are no shops or cafes to pop in to.  I abhor cleaning my house and find no joy or satisfaction in it. I do it because it is now my job description, like it or not.  I cant rely on the other Mums in town to keep me entertained. Because we move around so often all my friends I actually have in real life (that I have managed to keep from all the moving) are now in cyber space given the geography restraints.
I love my kids but I don’t want to draw all my happiness from them. I miss who I was before I became a  SAHM. I mean, I am there, I am still me, but I feel like a shadow of me.  A reflection.
Even on hubbys day off, he wants to sit and relax and play his computer games. I resent him for this and I feel like such a bitch. I mean, he does stuff, if I ask him (he is male yeah??), but I am so freaking jealous that on his DAYS OFF he gets to relax. in a chair. nobody needs him. The house just keeps on trucking. He doesn’t have to get up every nano second for kids crap. Master J comes to me every. single. time for all his needs. It gets frustrating. I cant blog during the day, I cant scrap, I cant even read a newspaper or a magazine in peace for five minutes. I volunteer for a community group in town and am the secretary. I cant even freaking do meeting agendas or minutes without being interrupted and crawled over or drinks being spilled on my lap. Or having to change a nappy. There is no ME time. And before you all get up him and tell him to lift his game, don’t. He works hard and spends heaps of quality time with the kids. He will drop everything if I ask him, or if the kids ask him. But they don’t. And I realise I have it pretty easy at home compared to him at work. The house stuff and day-to-day kids stuff is mine to do, but sometimes it just gets on top of me.
The never ending MUNDANE.
 
Some days every fibre in my body screams for an escape.
In my final moments this afternoon, I couldn’t even go and have a few minutes peace in the bedroom to try and get my shit in a pile without Master J calling Mummy! Mummy! Mummmmmmmmy! Where are you??? and coming in and jumping on me. He was being uber cute, hiding under the covers but before I left I yelled (not scary yelling, just forced addressing kind of) “you do know Daddy’s here too don’t you???”
I felt awful. I was losing it. I had to leave.
I grabbed my keys.
Hubby said but pick up isn’t for another hour. I said I know. I just need an hour of not. being. needed.
And I left.
Scared the crap out of Mr Point Five.
When I got home, he had taken Master J out to the park. He didn’t touch the computer for the rest of the afternoon. He gave the kids their bath. He amused them until it was time for bed. He poured me a glass of wine and I sat down to watch MKR. I still had to get up to Master J three times in 30 minutes as hubby had put the earphones on for his game and couldn’t hear him, but hey, I think he got a little of where I was at this afternoon.
The one who gets to go to work will never fully understand what it is like for the one at home. The one who is left behind. The one who gives up so much of themselves to their children. When people ask my husband what he does, he doesn’t reply with I’m a father. He tells them what he actually DOES with all the satisfaction it entails. When people see he has kids, the father part is a gimme. The joy and the rewards of being a father are just a gimme as well.  I answer with, I am a stay at home mum and with that I feel like I have lost something. I feel like I am treading water until Master J is in school and I can finally contribute more. Be more. FEEL more. I have been a SAHM for five years now and I am screaming for an escape.
As John Keating says In Dead Poets Society – “Thoreau said, “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation.” Don’t be resigned to that. Break out! break out now is the time!”
I love my kids and I really am grateful to be able to experience every second of their fledgeling years. It is a decision we both made for me to stay at home, but lately it is tearing at me from the inside.
How do you manage the feeling of being trapped at times???