The railway life sucks. It is hard on families, and hard on relationships, but it’s been our way of life for over 6 years and while I’m not much for routines, there is a routine in the chaos and unpredictability of the railway.
Thinking he’d be helping me out by taking a yard shift, my husband has been working normal hours for the past 2-3 weeks. He goes to work for 8 am and comes home after 4:30 pm for five days a week. The last time we had this sort of predictability, he was on jury duty.
However, the grass is rarely greener on the other side.
Today, I’m giving a big kudos to everyone with partners working 9-5 with weekends off.
I don’t know how you do it.
How do you share your bed every night? How do you take care of an extra adult every day? How do you survive on days where the kids see dad for 3 hours before bed and repeat for 5 days. Even weekends are sparse because my husband picks up other shifts or spends it working on projects. It’s a weird mix of too much and not enough.
I’m tired of sharing my bed and my space with someone all the time. There’s less quiet me time. It’s draining watching your children cry when Dad leaves for work every.single.morning.
I also hate having someone come home every night and feeling accountable to that… Not only does he have an 8 hour work day, but I also feel like I have an 8 hour work day, and I just wanna be in my jammies at 4 pm on a Tuesday because I can.
It has been nice having someone to do bedtime with one kid because solo bedtime sucks, but my husband takes bedtime less seriously than me. I love having an adult to eat dinner with, but I’m less than impressed about the need for ice cream after every meal.
Maybe, if I knew this was forever, I would build my own routines and expectations. But, because this is the railway, this sort of job could easily be pulled out from under our feet. It also pays less. So this just a week-to-week thing that feels no more stable than an on call shift.
If this was forever, I might pick up a pilates class in the evening, get my hair done on the weekends, or make plans more than 36 hours out. Maybe then it would feel better?
Right now it just feels weird.
Go back to running trains, please?
I think I kinda like solo parenting and just doing my thing 50% of the time. I like my husband having 24 – 48 hours off to just do something together. I also like that the unpredictability of his life schedule means it’s an easy excuse when I’m not feeling like going out, “oh, he went to work last minute” 😉
Bailey your life sounds like MINE!! My hubby is a CN conductor and you just described life to a T?
My husband was home for 3 months this winter … it’s was a serious adjustment so I feel you, but I kept reminding myself that the alternative (21 days away) is much much harder.