sarahsamudre: A Sad but Brilliant Win. Vasant and I have had a real weekend. We didn’t work Friday night, or anytime on Saturday, or anytime today. It feels like we won the lottery or something. To not work on ANY project, or go the extra mile for work, or even do construction, it feels like we’re on a five-star resort vacation. This is both beautiful and VERY, VERY SAD. You see, for those of you just tuning in, Vasant and I have never not worked hard. Our first year of marriage we worked like dogs at thankless jobs and made our families and friends our second jobs. That was the most miserable year. The year we tried to make everyone happy but ourselves. The year we tried to please bosses at jobs that were beneath us. The year we bent over backwards to appease people in our personal lives who we knew had betrayed us, were currently trash-talking us, and would betray us again in the future. But we thought this was the way. Get married, work full-time at whatever job you can get, appease the people you’re stuck with. Our second year of marriage was a revelation. We realized that no, this is NOT the way. We can go back to school, get our degrees, get jobs we like and surround ourselves with people who treat us well. We did not realize, however, how hard this would be to make a reality. We moved in with my parents, began building a place for us to live on my Dad’s property, went back to school, and began setting boundaries with people. This was the beginning of our seven day work week. This was the end of several friendships. This was the beginning of a whole new level of hostile activity from people who weren’t just mad at us for getting married, for changing our priorities, but a new level of hostility from people who mocked our living arrangements, the fact that we were married and in school, the fact that we had to take out loans to do so. Our third year of marriage was more of the same, minus some relationships and adding on more drama. When we weren’t studying, we were building our apartment. When we weren’t doing those things, I was writing my novel and Vasant was still doing construction. He was never not doing construction when we weren’t studying. He and my Dad worked incredibly hard, not just on our apartment, but on the up keep of the property, the cars and the odd construction job my Dad dug up for them to do. One was hours away, during finals week. But that was the year we got from community college to the University of Washington. Our workload doubled, since we decided to pursue two degrees each. We did video gigs on the side and I doubled my efforts to finish my book. On top of all this, we were still recovering from all the relationships we’d lost in the first two years of our relationship. Our fourth year of marriage was more of the same. Studying, apartment construction, novel, odd construction or video jobs on the side. We never took a weekend off. But things began to get traction that year. I realized I had to redo my book when I, at the gym, thought up an amazing character named Arnold Hitchens. I had to start from the beginning, but I knew it would be the last time. Arnold was what had been missing from my book. Vasant and my Dad finally finished our apartment. We moved in at the end of 2009, the day I turned 28. We still had no weekend, but we had our own roof that Vasant had built with his bare hands. Our fifth year was our busiest yet. We had until the end of the year to finish our degrees, and again, we were working on two each. We were going to film in Rome in August of that year and we needed to, for our degrees and for the trip, get through six quarters of Italian in 8 months. We took intense language courses that crammed several quarters into one. I finished my book by August and edited it through the fall. We finished our degrees by December 21, 2010. We filmed a documentary in Rome. We did not have a single day off that year. It was, though, our most rewarding year of our marriage to that point. Whereas our first three years were all work, no tangible achievement, in 2009 and 2010, we were finally getting a few things. A place of our own. Our degrees. My book. A documentary shot in Rome. Some people in our lives still left, mocking the fact that our parents helped us out, sneering at the fact that we needed student loans to get to where we were. Those people, while idiotic, still hurt us when they left. Our sixth year has been interesting. We were out of work, and yet scrambling to find it for the first five months of 2011. We had our own business, and we were working very hard to turn one project into others. I was pregnant in January and by March, had begun a miscarriage that would last until mid-May. But in May, Vasant was offered a job doing video work at Smartsheet. I got an internship blogging and doing social media strategy at Richard Hugo House in June. We worked harder than all previous years this summer, specifically Vasant. Smartsheet dangled a fulltime job in front of him for five months and Vasant put in about 90+ hours a week until they were confident that he was the right man for the job. He became salaried in October, but then we took a job working on a friend’s TV series. My grandma began dying. Life was all set to ease up, but then bam! We were back to cramming 8 days of work into a normal week. Luckily, our producer unintentionally gave us this last week off. He had a baby in November and got us our notes on our most recent cuts this afternoon. That’s how we got this entire weekend off. We had massages. We slept. We had pancakes. We had adventures. We slept MORE. Seriously, I think I finally caught up on sleep from September. We’re about to go see Gary Oldman introduce Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and then do an interview and audience Q & A. And then we’re going to go see Christmas lights downtown and then swing by our producer’s place, pick up another harddrive of footage, and then go home, watch last night’s Merlin and then go to bed. An actual complete weekend. I know this seems weird, but this is a bigger deal then getting our own place to live, finishing my book, finishing our degrees or filming in Rome. Even with all of those things, we were still working seven days a week. But we’re not now. We had an actual weekend. And sure, it may not last. We will always be crazy hard workers. There is just so much we want to accomplish. But maybe, just maybe, weekends will become more common. That is sadly, and wonderfully, a thing to look forward to. Sure, some people still make fun of us, sneering at the fact that we didn’t go to school before we got married and don’t have a big house in the suburbs and kids and blah, blah, blah. No, we didn’t do things perfectly. But we had a great time having adventures before we met each other and I’m GLAD we didn’t spend our single years studying. We had adventures and traveled and met people and had extraordinaire experiences that we’re STILL telling each other about, in our sixth (technically seventh) year of marriage. And there is so much more to accomplish. Paying off student loans. Saving up enough to take care of my parents in their old age. Finding a place to raise our kids. Writing more books, writing for a TV show and making films. More travel. More adventures. Having kids. Going to culinary school (Vasant’s goal for our fifties). But for now, we need to master sleep and have occasional weekends. We’re working on that other stuff, but they’re long-term goals. This month, we’re having a weekend. In our sixth year of marriage, in 2011, we finally managed to keep our work week to five days and have a solid Friday through Sunday weekend. It feels amazing. It feels, as funny as it sounds, like a major victory.

sarahsamudre:

A Sad but Brilliant Win.

Vasant and I have had a real weekend.

We didn’t work Friday night, or anytime on Saturday, or anytime today. It feels like we won the lottery or something. To not work on ANY project, or go the extra mile for work, or even do construction, it feels like we’re on a five-star resort vacation.

This is both beautiful and VERY, VERY SAD.

You see, for those of you just tuning in, Vasant and I have never not worked hard.

  • Our first year of marriage we worked like dogs at thankless jobs and made our families and friends our second jobs. That was the most miserable year. The year we tried to make everyone happy but ourselves. The year we tried to please bosses at jobs that were beneath us. The year we bent over backwards to appease people in our personal lives who we knew had betrayed us, were currently trash-talking us, and would betray us again in the future. But we thought this was the way. Get married, work full-time at whatever job you can get, appease the people you’re stuck with.
  • Our second year of marriage was a revelation. We realized that no, this is NOT the way. We can go back to school, get our degrees, get jobs we like and surround ourselves with people who treat us well. We did not realize, however, how hard this would be to make a reality. We moved in with my parents, began building a place for us to live on my Dad’s property, went back to school, and began setting boundaries with people. This was the beginning of our seven day work week. This was the end of several friendships. This was the beginning of a whole new level of hostile activity from people who weren’t just mad at us for getting married, for changing our priorities, but a new level of hostility from people who mocked our living arrangements, the fact that we were married and in school, the fact that we had to take out loans to do so.
  • Our third year of marriage was more of the same, minus some relationships and adding on more drama. When we weren’t studying, we were building our apartment. When we weren’t doing those things, I was writing my novel and Vasant was still doing construction. He was never not doing construction when we weren’t studying. He and my Dad worked incredibly hard, not just on our apartment, but on the up keep of the property, the cars and the odd construction job my Dad dug up for them to do. One was hours away, during finals week. But that was the year we got from community college to the University of Washington. Our workload doubled, since we decided to pursue two degrees each. We did video gigs on the side and I doubled my efforts to finish my book. On top of all this, we were still recovering from all the relationships we’d lost in the first two years of our relationship.
  • Our fourth year of marriage was more of the same. Studying, apartment construction, novel, odd construction or video jobs on the side. We never took a weekend off. But things began to get traction that year. I realized I had to redo my book when I, at the gym, thought up an amazing character named Arnold Hitchens. I had to start from the beginning, but I knew it would be the last time. Arnold was what had been missing from my book. Vasant and my Dad finally finished our apartment. We moved in at the end of 2009, the day I turned 28. We still had no weekend, but we had our own roof that Vasant had built with his bare hands.
  • Our fifth year was our busiest yet. We had until the end of the year to finish our degrees, and again, we were working on two each. We were going to film in Rome in August of that year and we needed to, for our degrees and for the trip, get through six quarters of Italian in 8 months. We took intense language courses that crammed several quarters into one. I finished my book by August and edited it through the fall. We finished our degrees by December 21, 2010. We filmed a documentary in Rome. We did not have a single day off that year. It was, though, our most rewarding year of our marriage to that point. Whereas our first three years were all work, no tangible achievement, in 2009 and 2010, we were finally getting a few things. A place of our own. Our degrees. My book. A documentary shot in Rome. Some people in our lives still left, mocking the fact that our parents helped us out, sneering at the fact that we needed student loans to get to where we were. Those people, while idiotic, still hurt us when they left.
  • Our sixth year has been interesting. We were out of work, and yet scrambling to find it for the first five months of 2011. We had our own business, and we were working very hard to turn one project into others. I was pregnant in January and by March, had begun a miscarriage that would last until mid-May. But in May, Vasant was offered a job doing video work at Smartsheet. I got an internship blogging and doing social media strategy at Richard Hugo House in June. We worked harder than all previous years this summer, specifically Vasant. Smartsheet dangled a fulltime job in front of him for five months and Vasant put in about 90+ hours a week until they were confident that he was the right man for the job. He became salaried in October, but then we took a job working on a friend’s TV series. My grandma began dying. Life was all set to ease up, but then bam! We were back to cramming 8 days of work into a normal week.

Luckily, our producer unintentionally gave us this last week off. He had a baby in November and got us our notes on our most recent cuts this afternoon.

That’s how we got this entire weekend off.

We had massages. We slept. We had pancakes. We had adventures. We slept MORE. Seriously, I think I finally caught up on sleep from September.

We’re about to go see Gary Oldman introduce Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and then do an interview and audience Q & A. And then we’re going to go see Christmas lights downtown and then swing by our producer’s place, pick up another harddrive of footage, and then go home, watch last night’s Merlin and then go to bed. An actual complete weekend.

I know this seems weird, but this is a bigger deal then getting our own place to live, finishing my book, finishing our degrees or filming in Rome. Even with all of those things, we were still working seven days a week. But we’re not now. We had an actual weekend. And sure, it may not last. We will always be crazy hard workers. There is just so much we want to accomplish. But maybe, just maybe, weekends will become more common. That is sadly, and wonderfully, a thing to look forward to. Sure, some people still make fun of us, sneering at the fact that we didn’t go to school before we got married and don’t have a big house in the suburbs and kids and blah, blah, blah. No, we didn’t do things perfectly. But we had a great time having adventures before we met each other and I’m GLAD we didn’t spend our single years studying. We had adventures and traveled and met people and had extraordinaire experiences that we’re STILL telling each other about, in our sixth (technically seventh) year of marriage.

And there is so much more to accomplish. Paying off student loans. Saving up enough to take care of my parents in their old age. Finding a place to raise our kids. Writing more books, writing for a TV show and making films. More travel. More adventures. Having kids. Going to culinary school (Vasant’s goal for our fifties).

But for now, we need to master sleep and have occasional weekends. We’re working on that other stuff, but they’re long-term goals. This month, we’re having a weekend. In our sixth year of marriage, in 2011, we finally managed to keep our work week to five days and have a solid Friday through Sunday weekend.

It feels amazing. It feels, as funny as it sounds, like a major victory.