Learning Curve

I have had about a hundred different employers.

I've worked in every type of restaurant.  I've had some jobs, like sandwich maker at Togo's and mashed potato server at Boston Market, for less than a week, and others for years, like working in banking centers at Bank of America, or Bartending at Chevy's.

The main reason I have bounced around so much is because I tend to learn quickly and bore just as quickly.  Even at Bank of America, I blew through so many positions that my regional manager had to create a new one for me:  Bay Area Utility Representative.  Essentially, whenever a banking center needed a position filled temporarily, for a day, a few days, a week, I would be off to the rescue.

And then I got bored of that.

Finally, after climbing my way up to Banking Center Manager by the age of twenty five, I realized that there was nowhere else for me to go.  I certainly had no interest in working at the regional level; middle management sucks.  And I couldn't conceive of working in an office cubicle somewhere in research and development, tucked away, unable to work with the public.

I had to go to school.  If I wanted to continue to grow in a career, to continue learning and moving, I had to get an education in something I was passionate about:  education.

It took me a long time to understand what it would take, and once I learned this lesson, I got myself into, through, and out of college with a Master's Degree and highest honors in six years.  And I now find myself with two jobs that fit perfectly into my life; I am continually challenged and never afraid of becoming bored.

The story is the same with the men in my life.  I have had more than a handful of serious relationships, and a couple handfuls of not so serious ones.  I have no regrets about the men I spent time with, only the duration of time I spent with some.  Dating, like employment and education, is a process.  There is a learning curve involved wherein you fine tune what you are actually looking for in a life partner versus what feels good right now or what is just downright bad for you.  Don't like being the girlfriend of a player?  Don't date guys like that last one.  Not interested in having a guy fall all over himself to please you, even at the expense of his own dignity?  Avoid men with those qualities next time.  Each time a relationship ended, I tried to do better the next time.

I have always understood that people are lucky to find a good fit once, and incredibly fortunate to find it twice.  I was just hoping for once.

In short, if not for my learning curve, if not for all the bad fits that came before, I would never have found my way down the turbulent, heartbreaking path to Carlos.  I never would have been able to appreciate the qualities of his that perfectly balance my flaws, or the ways in which apparently my own qualities help him become an even better husband and father (he gives me a lot of credit).  

Lately, I have come to see also how crucial the learning curve is to motherhood.  I was not a paranoid pregnant person at all.  Pregnancy was actually a brief respite in my long line of paranoid experiences.  I was at peace, comfortable in my skin fully and completely for the first time.  I was born to be pregnant.

I am nowhere near that calm as a mother.

It does not help that my daughter was born blue, rushed off to Children's Hospital and kept under observation for a week.  She had a cardiologist before her legal name was even written down on paper. She was Baby Girl Mathews Mendez with two tiny holes in her heart.  In reality she was a big, fat, 9 pound, remarkably healthy baby in a room full of underweight, premature, babies preparing for life threatening surgeries.  But all I knew was that I couldn't take my baby home yet.  I had to visit her, from a wheel chair because my C-Section incision still caused me pain.

Celaya has been quite healthy for her twenty months on this earth.  I was just commenting to my husband on how it has been months and months since she has had even a cold.

But her very first cold arrived as soon as we brought her home from the hospital.  I was terrified.  What if she stopped breathing?  What if she vomitted up her breastmilk and became malnourished?  What if she got pneumonia?

Her first stomach virus was the same.  She woke up from her nap and threw up her lunch all over me, the rocking chair, the carpet.  I flipped out.  I called the doctor, whipped off her clothes, sent someone for popsicles, pedialyte, soup, crackers, everything I could think of.  I sat up with her all night, holding cool compresses to her feverish brow.  She was just shy of her first birthday and I was praying real prayers that she did not have some rare infection or disease that would put her back in the hospital.

She was fine.  It was a simple stomach virus that passed in a couple of days.  It has made her stronger, more resilient, healthier.  She has a solid immune system.  But it took me 20 months to get to this point.

Hey, it took me 15 months just to get to the point where I was comfortable enough to leave her alone in her room all night, finally training her to sleep through the night.

So here we are today, and I am now a seasoned expert; Celaya is teething.  Apparently incisors come in around this age.  She's drooling like crazy, crying a sad, pathetic, pained cry.  She has a small fever.  But I'm a pro by now.  When she awakens in pain in the middle of the night, I give her some Tylenol, bring her into bed, comfort her, keep her hydrated throughout the next day, and, knowing in my gut that she's fine, plan to head off to work as usual.

She's emotional all day, but in general, doing well.  I give her some more Tylenol, leave instructions with Teno for her favorite Baby Einstein videos, kiss her sweet little cheeks, and drive away.

Teno sends me cute pictures of the two of them cuddled up and watching videos.

Great.

My schedule at work is packed.

And then I make the big mistake.  I call home to check on Carlos and the baby during my break, and Celaya is crying in the background.

I start second guessing myself.  What if I'm under-reacting?  What if she has appendicitis?  What if she cries so hard she gags on her own vomit?  What if Carlos gets frustrated and leaves her alone to cry by herself, lonely and scared without her mother?  Her irresponsible mother who went to work instead of staying home with her sick baby like any good mother would.  What if she can't fall asleep without me?  What if her fever skyrockets and Carlos doesn't realize?

And on and on.

I get happy baby videos at work from Carlos about an hour later.  He had given her a bath and some Tylenol and she was better now.  I get home later and learn that, while she had had a difficult afternoon, she did eat a little and she went to bed fine on her own.  She had been resting peacefully ever since.  No catastrophe.  Papa took care of everything, just like the good father I know he is (when I'm being logical).

My baby is healthy.  All babies teethe.  There's no reason to freak out.

This time.

So I guess the learning curve on motherhood is pretty long.