Before you ask: yes, I changed my picture on the sidebar. I just couldn't handle how smugly superior I looked in the other picture, like I was gazing down from my throne on high. (Granted, this effect was probably amplified by the fact that Cal took the photo--Cal, who necessarily takes every portrait shot from below.) But every time I opened my own page, I felt like there I was, looking down my nose at my own self for wearing knock-off Keds in seventh grade or something. Remember when people used to color in little blue rectangles on the heels of their canvas sneakers, to make them look more like Keds? Yeah, me too. So anyway, I switched the photo. The surgical mask is not some sort of stab at anonymity, by the way--after almost ten years on the web, I think the cat's out of the bag on that one. It's just that that's the most recent photo I have of myself and I happened to take it at work, so there you are.
(Cal just came in as I was posting up that photo, by the way, and the following dialogue took place:
CAL
Is that a picture of you?
MICHELLE
Yeah, that's me.
CAL
You don't look normal.
MICHELLE
I look abnormal?
CAL
Yeah, why are you wearing that doctor suit?
Anyway, ha.)
As most people with jobs in medicine (and as probably most working mothers regardless of chosen career) can attest--my day to day life is pretty stressful. Not that I don't love my job, but there are moments when I consider the wisdom of choosing a field where patients routinely try to die right in front of my eyes. In those moments, I can appreciate the allure of a field like, say, pathology. Meticulous attention to details, beautiful grasp of descriptive vocabulary, and that certain distance between you and your patients that can sometimes be a saving grace. Granted, I think most people think that anesthesiologists already have enough distance from their patients (for instance, we always have ways to stop an annoying conversation--a syringe of midazolam in one hand and a syringe of propofol in the other does wonders), but I think most anesthesiologists that I've met are fairly empathic and have a decent bedside manner--or at the bare minimum have perfected the fine art of small talk--considering that the majority of their job takes place while the patient is unconscious.
If I had to list the most stressful thing in my life though, it would not be my job itself. In fact, far and away, I would say that the most stressful thing in my life is the juggle of trying to figure out who is going to be home for my kids in the evening. As an anesthesiologist, my hours are somewhat more variable than Joe's. Some days I get out from work pretty early, and some days I get out from work pretty late, and though for the most part I can anticipate which ones the Really Early and Really Late days are going to be, there are many days in between that I just don't know whether or not I'm going to be home by dinner until it's pretty much too late to do anything about it if I can't. These are the stress days.
We have a nanny and she's wonderful, and while she doesn't cook, I usually do enough cooking on the weekends that she has plenty of options of food to heat up and serve the kids. This particular nanny has been with us for two years now, so the kids know her and love her, and she has no problem staying with them until either Joe and I get home, even if it's a little later than expected, so thank goodness for that. But there are days when I'm trapped at work, and I get a text from Joe that he's trapped at work, and I think about the evening ticking by with neither parent at home, and all things that need to get done when we do return--the bathing and the school lunch-packing and the bed-timing and all of it--and it just stresses me out.
Oddly, being at work late in and of itself is not stressful at all if I know that Joe is home with the kids. In that way, my nights on call are oddly liberating. When I'm scheduled to be on call, Joe tries to structure his day so he can at least be home before 6:00pm, and once he texts me that he just walked in the door, I can relax. After that point, it feels like it doesn't matter how late I have to stay at the hospital. A parent has has landed. My kids are no longer orphans. And strange as it sounds, there are nights at the hospital that feel less frenzied and less stressful that certain evenings at home.
This is not to make parenthood seem like this joyless dirge of endless food preparation and cleaning up in various forms (though...kind of), and not to say that we don't have fun when we are home. We do. But sometimes the time we have together seems so short, and so goal-oriented, so purpose-driven. I wouldn't give up my job for anything, but sometimes I just wish that the day were a little longer, or that I or the kids didn't need quite as much sleep to be sane the next morning.