December 17: Resentment, "Carol" Dip, Job

I have a confession:  there is a part of me that resents the fact that my wife is able to stay home and take care of our children.  I know she didn't choose to be pink slipped.  The day she lost her job, she called me, crying, and said, "I'm not sad about getting fired.  I'm sad about not being able to help you with money.  I know how hard you work."  All I think about right now is how to pay the next bill or buy the next Christmas present.

Since she joined the ranks of the unemployed, my wife has been visiting my son's classrooms and going to Bible study at church on Tuesdays.  She's catching up on the laundry, and dinner is usually made by the time I get home from work.  But, when my alarm goes off at 4 a.m. every morning and I have to drag myself out of bed, there's a part of me that gets a little bit angry.  I can't remember the last time I slept past 6:30 a.m.  I'm tired.  I was thinking of canceling my vacation at the beginning of January because I could earn a lot of overtime pay if I worked, but I can't bring myself to do it.  I am really looking forward to having two full weeks off.  Now, I feel guilty about my vacation.

I've said before that I know I'm lucky for having the jobs that I do.  Not many Americans have jobs that give them health insurance and paid time off and vision coverage.  Many people would kill for the kind of benefits that I have.  I'm lucky.  I'm blessed.  I'm grateful.  There, I've said all the things I should say.

But I'm still resentful and tired.  I don't want to get up at 4 a.m. for the rest of my working life.  I want a normal existence.  One job with decent hours and pay and benefits.  Of course, my choice would be to work for the university as a full-time instructor.  It's the one thing I do in my professional life that provides me with a sense of fulfillment.  I love being on campus and teaching.

I bet you can guess what my question for Carol dip Monday is going to be:

Will I get a full-time teaching job at the university this coming year?

And the answer (although I don't hold out too much hope) from Scrooge and company is:

...What's Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in 'em through a round dozen months presented dead against you?

Hmmmmm.  Paying bills without money.  Balancing my books and having every item for a year listed as a debt or liability.  Sounds pretty bleak.

Looks like Saint Marty's going to be setting his alarm to 4 a.m. for another year.

My least favorite time of day

January 31: Paying Bills Without Money, Dickens' Birthday, Being Fred

"Don't be cross, uncle," said the nephew.

"What else can I be," returned the uncle, "when I live in such a world of fools as this?  Merry Christmas!  Out upon merry Christmas!  What's Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in 'em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you?  If I could work my will," said Scrooge, indignantly, "every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas,' on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart.  He should!"

In some ways, I sympathize with Scrooge's little rant against his nephew here.  Don't misunderstand my statement.  I'm not saying I endorse his hatred of all things Yuletide or his terminal stinginess.  No, I'm saying I understand his aversion to sustained debt.  Scrooge has lived his life, for the most part, accumulating money instead of debt.  As his one-time fiancee, Belle, said to him, Scrooge does this because he "fear[s] the world too much."

Scrooge's nephew, Fred, seems to subscribe to the opposite philosophy.  While he appears to live a comfortable life (he's no Bob Cratchit), Fred doesn't withhold charity and generosity.  He does carry Christmas spirit around with him all year.  He trusts in love, the ability for love to transform a life.  Fred has a wife he adores, and he resolves to keep extending his love to Scrooge until it makes a difference, until his uncle embraces the healing power of human compassion.

For Fred, it appears, money is secondary.  If Fred were poor, living on fifteen shillings a week, like Bob Cratchit, Fred would still be happy.  Fred has love.

Happy birthday, Chuck!

February 7, 2012, will be the 200th birthday of Charles Dickens.  There's huge festivities planned in London to celebrate  this occasion.  Dickens is a beloved figure in his native land, and for good reason.  However, Charles Dickens had a little more Ebenezer Scrooge in his make-up than he would probably have cared to admit.  Dickens was constantly worried about his finances.  (This may partly be due to his poor childhood with a feckless father.)  Despite huge success during his lifetime, Dickens was in a constant state of debt and worry.  When he came to the United States on his first reading tour, Dickens lectured Americans about copyright.  He wanted, rightfulyl, to be paid for the American editions of his books.  The spectre of bankruptcy and failure followed Dickens his whole life.  He constantly feared the world too much.  He wasn't Fred.

I, too, tend to fear the world too much, as I confessed a few posts ago.  I find myself constantly worried about finances and money.  I am Ebenezer Scrooge.  I should be Fred.  In my life, I actually have more than Fred when it comes to love.  I have a wife I adore, just like Scrooge's nephew.  However, I also have two children who make my life a joy (when they're not driving me crazy).  Fred, as far as I can tell, has no children.  What Fred has that I don't have is the certainty that, no matter what happens, he will survive.  He will thrive.  Because of love.

Like Charles Dickens, Saint Marty needs a little more Fred in his life.