Gary BUTTERWORTH Online

STRATFORD, NJ, USA

If I had posted this 36 hours ago, the dateline above would have read “Washington, DC.”

If you haven’t heard yet, I’ll break the good news now:

I’m back to work!!!

Two consecutive days per week, I am working in my old office in Washington, D.C., doing almost the same job I was doing when I left over a year ago–international TV news producer.  The days may change each week, but the job is the same, and I couldn’t be happier.  After two weeks, all I can say is, “so far, so good.”

I can hardly believe it.

How did you get it?

When I left my job in November 2006 to become my grandmother’s full-time live-in caregiver, my office told me they thought I might be able to start back again part-time in January 2007.  Then it was supposed to be some time in March.  Then May or June.  Then I gave up on that, only to be recruited for (and offered!) an extremely lucrative 3-month contract overseas that I just couldn’t pass up, even with my grandmom to worry about.  Of course, that fell through, too.  Accounting issues.  Blah.

There were some management changes in my old DC office over the summer, and in September I was told that bringing me back in part-time was a high priority.  There were some e-mails and phone calls back and forth, but after seeing so much fall through, I refused to let myself get too excited.  Excitement had only lead to let-down before, and all of my friends and family members thought I was nuts for thinking that this would ever come through.  So, I stayed calm.  All along, I felt almost 100% certain that I’d be back there one day, but I didn’t know if that would be this year or years down the road.  “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Well, sure enough, the day before Thanksgiving, I found a draft contract in my e-mail in-box!  And on November 26th, they confirmed my re-start date: November 28, 2007!

So, for the foreseeable future (my contract is through Sept. 30), I’ll be commuting down to DC once per week. 

How will you get there? 

The schedule actually works out very well for me: I get up at 7am, hop on the Chinatown bus in Philadelphia at 9am, and roll into D.C. around 11:30.  Then, I work Noon to 8pm.    The following day, I work 11:30am-7:30pm-ish, hop on the 8pm bus to Philadelphia, and I’ll be back at my grandmom’s house by midnight!

(At some point, if I return to the role of line producer and post-production producer, my schedule may be pushed back a few hours.  That may impact my transportation a bit, but I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.)

Door-to-door, the trip from my grandmom’s house to my DC office takes just under 4 hours.  But it’s not nearly as bad as it sounds.  2.5 hours of that are me relaxing on a bus.  And it only costs me $33 round-trip.

I seriously considered buying a car.  After all, I am making money again.  And, without rent to pay, I’m saving quite a bit.  But I decided against it for now.  Sure, a car would cut at least an hour each way off of my trip (since I wouldn’t have to go into Philadelphia first), but I just don’t think it would be worth it.  Instead of 4 hours of zoning out on a bus and a subway train, it would be almost three hours of concentrating on the road–not something I really want to do first thing in the morning with a full day of work ahead of me, or last thing at night after a long day.  Especially in bad weather.  Plus, parking alone would end up costing me as much as bus fare.  Then, there is gas, tolls, maintenance, and insurance, which would end up make driving about twice as expensive as taking the bus.  Maybe one day, but for now, no thanks.

Where are you staying?

The first week, I stayed at the same youth hostel that has become my emergency home in DC.  Cumulatively, I bet I’ve spent about a month there, and it’s always fun.

This week, thanks to a bargain on priceline.com, I stayed in a hotel a short walk from work.  It was pretty nice, and the ability to come “home” from work, get comfy, and just relax by watching TV at a reasonable volume without having to answer the same questions dozens of times was amazing.  It made me a little bit nostalgic for my old life…where I had privacy, peace, and quiet each night.  I miss that.  But more than nostalgic, it just felt cozy and relaxing…a nice break from the ear-splitting and restless life with Nana.

In the future, I’ll probably frequent the hostels and priceline.com.  But every once in a while, I’ll probably try to mooch a night on various friends’ couches.  If you’re in DC and you don’t mind me couch-surfing at your place every once in a while, please let me know.  I’d be happy to give you a few bucks for your hospitality. 

What about Grandma?

My mom is out of work at the moment.  So, for now, she will stay here for the 40 or so hours per week when I’m out of town.  She’s not particularly happy about it, but she knows how much I appreciate her help, and how important this job is to me.

My mom has an incredible job prospect that is looking very promising, though; so, we don’t know how long this arrangement will last.  Consequently, we are looking at home-care agencies.  Eventually, we will have to hire someone to grandma-sit for 40 hours or so per week.

I’m not really sure how I feel about that.  It’s admittedly not ideal, but nothing about this situation is.  Obviously, we will do our homework to make sure we find a reputable caregiver, but I just know that a stranger in her house will make my grandmom VERY uncomfortable.

It’s only for 40 hours per week.  And, even with my job, I’m still spending over 100 hours per week with my grandmom as her “part-time” caregiver.  Considering that, I feel like I deserve this opportunity.  I feel like my grandmom will just have to deal with it for a day and a half each week.

Besides, if my grandmom were in her right mind, she’d probably want me to take advantage of this opportunity to advance my career, make a little money, and just get out of the house to do something I enjoy.

But maybe, if I were in my right mind, my priorities would be different, and I wouldn’t expect a helpless 89 year old woman to “deal with it.”

Who knows.

All I know is that I don’t really want to be thinking about hypothetical and imponderables right now.

All I know is that it feels incredibly good to get out of the house and back into the workforce!

Filed under: alzheimers, Life, Nana, Travel, Washington, DC/Silver Spring, MD, Work