Better Full Than Empty

I have a great job. I work with great people. The pay is good, and you can't beat the commute. I live right across the street! I can walk across the street during my lunch break and walk my dog and make a sandwich. If I had a baby ( if only if only...) I could be home faster than it takes some people to reach their corporate daycare in their big office buildings. There is only one catch, and that is the fact that the job is seasonal. I was so happy to just get a paid job in my field in this economy three years ago that working only 6 months out of the year didn't bother me. But now, I'm not so sure.

It isn't just the fact that I work only half the year that bothers me, it is everything around the title of  'seasonal' that is starting to affect me. One day I am responsible for everything, the next day I'm back to being just seasonal staff. I am too old to be starting all over again at the bottom of the heap. But years of infertility and taking care of my kids has put me there. Not that I would trade those years to be on top of the professional ladder, mind you, but I wish there was some middle ground. I keep telling myself "Next year I will apply for a full time job someplace else if I'm not full time here."  But.....aren't six months at a great job better than a full year someplace else? Maybe. But last year when November came and I was home alone for the first time in 8 years, I just sat down on the stairs and cried. I'm dreading the end of the Summer. It wasn't supposed to be like this.

Yesterday or thereabouts the bean would have turned two. There would be toilet training and tantrums. Instead there just isn't. On days like today the giant pile of what isn't weighs me down. I have hit a wall. I live my life normally most of the time, but every once in a while, like now, I am laid low by grief and it is so hard to get up. And it doesn't seem to get better. I am still vulnerable. Like a tiny car broken down in the middle of the intersection, I'm still easily broadsided by the pregnant woman in the library or the newborn baby sleeping in it's car seat in front of me in the check out line. Isn't time supposed to make this all go away? It isn't ever going to go away, is it.


Oh crap.