The Supportive Wife.
One of the many roles I have accepted by refusing to become permanently employed in New Zealand is that of the supportive wife. It is an important role, and not usually difficult to fulfill because my partner is super great and nice and good looking and all that. Of course, in some situations, the requirements of my duty can be somewhat taxing, especially when my partner has been abducted by the Company until the delivery of the Big Project. I think that the real challenge in this position sneaks up in my interaction with other supportive wives, or at least, in the comparisons I inadvertently make among us. Truthfully, I don't know that many supportive wives, or even just plain wives. But there are a few in town with partners at the Company who understand their roles well, and act in accordance with the everchanging times. My respect for these wives is enormous; I am trying to learn from them.
At this time, when the Company is rushing and flailing, rushing and flailing, demanding more time of its workers and frowning upon the maintenance of any familial connections, at least until this Big Project is complete, my instinct as the supportive wife is to hitch up my trousers and dive into the muck. If the Company wants my husband, with no promises to love and adore him in a manner somewhat less passionate, but with every bit of enthusiasm as I do, then I want to fight the Company. If they cannot promise to send him home in time for a late dinner, then I want to pow-wow with someone at the Company about the sublime difficulties I have in the kitchen. If the Company fails to make proper plans to run itself smoothly and efficiently, then I want the Company to know that their ridiculous blunder does not constitute an emergency in my little family.
To be succinct, I am ready to have a go at the Company, or some representative of it. I will take this quarrel wherever they want it; I can march with a brightly-colored picket sign, or I can pen an angrily-worded letter, or I can sit on the floor watching boats pass into the harbor as I pitch some inane trash-talking out to the world on a little-read blog. And I have to say, they are lucky that I meditate, because in addition to abhorring their crude and inhuman strategies to complete a very Big Project, I have some issues with the grammar they use in their fun-filled and exclamation point-heavy emails inviting my husband to yet another Sunday of fun-filled work. He was told this Friday, "Don't worry!!!! We are not alone!!!!!!" Umm. Okay. Are the aliens going to help finish this thing up so my husband can share a meal with me and still have energy to say words, like how we used to, like in a conversation?
Okay, okay. You caught me. Here is where I commence the comparisons. I know these other supportive wives who see this mess, register the appropriate shock and mild anger, then resume with their personal needs and interests. They don't obsess on the absence of an articulated scheme for success in the Company. They don't spend hours seething over the Company's negligence in refusing to coordinate research and development at a more convenient time in the Big Project's plan, rather than 9 weeks before the deadline. These are healthy women. These women know where they have power and where they don't. These women know what it is to be supportive.
Of course, the perfection of the perfectly supportive wife depends on the husband. There are many different types out there, and so we all get to be different in our responses to chaotic times. For example, this suppotive wife is quick-stepping over the Equator to India for a month. From there, I can march all day and night with my picket signs and my husband won't lose his job over it.
The one thing that I was pleased to learn today in talking with a couple of supportive wives who I consider very strong in their games: we all spend far too much time looking at realtor.com and dreaming about getting our husbands back. That, and reading Hollywood rumor pages. Imagine being married to someone like Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt for Pete's sake. Being a supportive wife to those lollipop heads would sure require a lot of picket-signs; either that or I'd become a scientologist too and start flagging down the alien ships who are coming to shore up the Company's failures and see if they can't also cure me of my freaky pash rash. Remember, we are not alone.
At this time, when the Company is rushing and flailing, rushing and flailing, demanding more time of its workers and frowning upon the maintenance of any familial connections, at least until this Big Project is complete, my instinct as the supportive wife is to hitch up my trousers and dive into the muck. If the Company wants my husband, with no promises to love and adore him in a manner somewhat less passionate, but with every bit of enthusiasm as I do, then I want to fight the Company. If they cannot promise to send him home in time for a late dinner, then I want to pow-wow with someone at the Company about the sublime difficulties I have in the kitchen. If the Company fails to make proper plans to run itself smoothly and efficiently, then I want the Company to know that their ridiculous blunder does not constitute an emergency in my little family.
To be succinct, I am ready to have a go at the Company, or some representative of it. I will take this quarrel wherever they want it; I can march with a brightly-colored picket sign, or I can pen an angrily-worded letter, or I can sit on the floor watching boats pass into the harbor as I pitch some inane trash-talking out to the world on a little-read blog. And I have to say, they are lucky that I meditate, because in addition to abhorring their crude and inhuman strategies to complete a very Big Project, I have some issues with the grammar they use in their fun-filled and exclamation point-heavy emails inviting my husband to yet another Sunday of fun-filled work. He was told this Friday, "Don't worry!!!! We are not alone!!!!!!" Umm. Okay. Are the aliens going to help finish this thing up so my husband can share a meal with me and still have energy to say words, like how we used to, like in a conversation?
Okay, okay. You caught me. Here is where I commence the comparisons. I know these other supportive wives who see this mess, register the appropriate shock and mild anger, then resume with their personal needs and interests. They don't obsess on the absence of an articulated scheme for success in the Company. They don't spend hours seething over the Company's negligence in refusing to coordinate research and development at a more convenient time in the Big Project's plan, rather than 9 weeks before the deadline. These are healthy women. These women know where they have power and where they don't. These women know what it is to be supportive.
Of course, the perfection of the perfectly supportive wife depends on the husband. There are many different types out there, and so we all get to be different in our responses to chaotic times. For example, this suppotive wife is quick-stepping over the Equator to India for a month. From there, I can march all day and night with my picket signs and my husband won't lose his job over it.
The one thing that I was pleased to learn today in talking with a couple of supportive wives who I consider very strong in their games: we all spend far too much time looking at realtor.com and dreaming about getting our husbands back. That, and reading Hollywood rumor pages. Imagine being married to someone like Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt for Pete's sake. Being a supportive wife to those lollipop heads would sure require a lot of picket-signs; either that or I'd become a scientologist too and start flagging down the alien ships who are coming to shore up the Company's failures and see if they can't also cure me of my freaky pash rash. Remember, we are not alone.
posted by your friend at Sunday, September 11, 2005
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