I miss my family

I miss my family.

I hate to beat this point to death, but I am far too busy. This isn’t what I thought pharmacy school would be like. I don’t know exactly what I was imagining, but involved me working much less and my wife working more. Instead, she’s not working while I’m working too much. In one sense, I’m happy to do this, because it lets her stay home with Xander, and I think that’s important. I don’t want my children to be raised by strangers. But on the other hand, I’m stretched way too thin. I’m exhausted on three or four days of the week, and on the others I’m just trying to catch up on sleep and school work. The thing that’s getting neglected her are my wife and my son.

Wednesday night I came home after not having spent any waking time with my son for three days. Suddenly he’s transformed into a walking, talking, tantrum-throwing toddler. This isn’t the same kid I was playing with even a week ago, and I missed it! Something changed while I was away at class and work, and I’m just worried that so much will change he won’t know who I am. He obviously prefers his mother, which is a pretty normal attachment, but I don’t feel like I’m his parent any more. I miss the days that I would be with him from waking until dinner time when Jaime finally got home from work. I miss taking him to the mall with me and I miss playing Dance Dance Revolution while he watches me and I know I’m missing so much right now that I’ll probably never experience. It makes me cry.

The last time I spent time with my wife without practically falling asleep or biting her head off because I was so exhausted was two weeks ago when a foot of snow closed just about everything in the city for a day and a half. That was a great time, but it was so brief and it only happened because of some lucky and well-timed weather. I hate that I’m doing this to her, and I don’t know what to do about it.

I know this might be a little awkward to read, depending on how well you know me. I’m not writing this to ask for your help, and I’m not trying to get anybody’s pity. I wanted to express these feelings in some way because I don’t have time to talk about it with anyone, and I don’t process my feelings verbally. When I started this blog I thought it would be an outsider’s guide to pharmacy school, but it very rarely is. If anyone’s still reading, I’m sorry, but thank you for sticking around. If you want, you can pray that I’ll have the wisdom to be a better husband and father. If you’re not that kind of person who prays, keep me in your thoughts. And please remember your loved ones. I know they drive us crazy sometimes, but trust me, you’d miss them if they weren’t around.

Thanks for stopping by, and come back soon.