Resentment mounts, but I'm trying

I do feel somewhat bad for how awful I'm talking about my boss and my job right now. I just need someplace to vent. I don't want the Magpie to hear me saying stuff like what I say. I don't want to really unload on my colleagues about my misery. The J is probably tired of hearing it. And my mom has a tendency to add fuel to the fire and sometimes make things worse, or at least make them worse in my head. I do hate sending all this negative energy out into the universe though. It makes me feel like an awful person.

Really since the Magpie was born, actually, since the quarter my boss thrust an overload on me while super pregnant, I've really struggled to find a balance between my family and my work here. And it's not even a matter of sacrificing one for the other. It always comes at the expense of my own work. And as I say time and time again, it's only when I'm really working on my scholarship that I'm truly happy. So why can't I find time to prioritize that? I don't know. It is harder now because even though my scholarship is what is going to get me tenure, if I sacrifice my teaching slightly for the sake of getting work done, I'm going to hear about it, especially since I had that bomb of a class in the fall. If I don't give the appearance of having it all put together, then it will work against me, even if I try to argue that I've been working on my scholarship and even if I have that to back it up, it will be a mark against me that it appears that I can't do both well at the same time.

What's left is either sacrificing myself or my family, each of which makes me even grumpier and more resentful of my boss. I don't want to work out at 5am in order to get everything done and still take care of myself. But I may have to suck that up. Yeah, yeah, a minor inconvenience in the grand scheme of things, but seriously, who wants to get up at 4:30am to work out? I used to, but that was before I had a kid and a full morning post-workout to come home to. But that may be what has to be done. But that's not even really it. What I hate the most is that I have to relinquish the things that I see as taking care of my family to my mom, which, while helpful, makes me feel like an utter fucking loser for being 40 and having my mom still take care of me. It's also very much a privilege. Don't get me wrong. Magpie loves it when the grandparents are in. They love it. It takes pressure off of us, but still, it serves as a reminder that I am incapable of taking care of myself and my family.

I think even if I were at at place that was a 4/4 again, which not that I want that, even with a 4/4, I won't be spending nearly 4 hours in class a day on top of 10 additional office hours a week, and my time would be freed up a little bit. I swore I wouldn't make a lateral move, but at this point, given the state of the state and the university, the husband, though nervous about it, thinks it is time to consider that option if one presents itself in my parents' state. I think the system is set up here for mothers to fail. Seriously. Unless you get your stuff done before you have a kid, or you have a kid who's not sick, or you have a husband who has a very flexible schedule, or your boss doesn't rely on you to pick up everyone else's slack so they can go commune with nature and get their heads together. And a boss who doesn't make scheduling decisions based on what she perceives your situation to be.

Sure, there are moms who have tenure here. They didn't get tenure under this boss, I'd like to point that out. And they got tenure with course releases (we were supposed to get two before tenure) to get their work finished. So there's a reason, I believe, that it's been a while since a woman and a mother got tenure here.

It might not seem like I'm trying to work on my attitude, but I am. Honestly, I'm hinging everything, unfortunately, on my blood tests tomorrow (for this and possibly this causing it, although it seems unlikely, but would explain a lot), and a positive diagnosis actually would be an easy fix basically for a lot of things. A negative diagnosis means that I'm doing something wrong and will have to work harder to fix myself. And I don't have the energy for that, honestly. And what I need most of all is energy! That's part of the problem!

I've also got to start thinking about a new morning routine. I think my negative attitude in the mornings (because once I think about coming to campus I start to get grumpy and irritated) is starting to affect Magpie, and that's not good. I hate bringing that to the table. So I've got to figure something out to get me through the end of the quarter and next quarter that enables me to be healthy, productive, and less bitchy.