What's it worth?

T turned in his two-week notice on Wednesday.

He's had a job offer from a company that has nothing to do with race cars. That's one of two downsides to this. The second is that he will have to say goodbye to his current work buddies, and that stings. He likes building race cars, likes fixing them when they get a little bent by the students, likes knowing all about them, likes helping out with the schools. He likes the guys at work, likes going to lunch with them every now and then instead of coming home, likes hanging out and shooting the bull.

Aside from those two things, though, it's "So long and thanks for all the fish." I actually wrote that on his letter of resignation - they have a weird sense of humor over there and the right people will get it and laugh. The wrong person saw it and got all huffy...but what can she do, fire him?

The new job has the potential to save his sanity, save his life, save his marriage. That's a lot of saves. It may also keep us out of bankruptcy, and that's nothing to sneeze at. The new job will not require him to work overtime without the compensation of time-and-a-half or comp time. It will not require eighteen hour days that are paid like eight hours, days when he is gone before Bird and I are up and home after the Evil Genius is long abed, thereby missing the entirety of his son's day. For weeks on end.

Hopefully, the new job won't require him to put his family life last - because the old (well, still current for the next week and a half) one did that, and our marriage has been on the ragged edge because of it. I have been a single mother for months on end, the only parent my son has seen, the only one cooking, cleaning, teaching, taking the Evil Genius to play at the park. It has worn me down...all the work and none of the benefits of being a wife and mother, and I have seriously considered whether the tax break is worth it.

No, a new job won't fix what's wrong, but it will take some of the strain away, and maybe even allow us a little time to recover, to heal, to (dare I hope?) nurture it and see if it gets better.

Of course, it could get worse. After all, the new job has T working from the house three nights a week and home fives days a week during the day. But then, I can grab Bob the Wonder Computer and leave for a little while if T starts driving me crazy, right?

It's not the money that I cared about, although it will help to have a bit more income. It's the time. The time we haven't had because of that job that used to be good, used to be worth it, until the company got bought out and went to Hell.

He's been thinking about it for a while, getting a new job, but I think it was Bird who pushed him over the edge. One evening last week, our precious son wandered into the kitchen and told me he missed Daddy. He never got to have cuddle night or play any more. When T went to tuck him in the next night ( a rare night, lately, when he was home), Bird told him "Daddy, I wish you had a different job so you could be home sometimes because I miss you." Y'all, I didn't prompt that - that was pure Evil Genius.

All that time he gave up, all those weeks and months he worked every day because he thought he had to, because you don't just quit when it gets tough, you soldier on and give things a chance to get better, because you don't just quit a job without another one at the ready...all that time he missed, we can't get it back. Was it worth the pittance they were paying? Coming close to making the load on his already crazy wife hit critical, was it worth that? What is that lost time with your family worth?

We'll see how this works out, but I hope for the best - that he'll be happy, that he'll find he enjoys the new job, he can still hang out at the track, work turns on the weekend, go to lunch with his pals now and then. And maybe, just maybe, we'll find it's worth the tax break after all.

I'll end with this thought: You don't live to work, you work to live. When you can do what you love and it makes your life all the sweeter, grand. If the job starts to taint everything else in your life, then it's over. Walk away. There will always be another job somewhere, but your heart and soul are all you get for this life...once they're worn down, that's it. Money will never make up for time lost, will never fill up the empty places. Think about it.