So I’m a Housewife Now
Just a few days after I posted my last blog, I received my Emirates ID. Along with my very air brushed headshot, it contains all the pertinent information in both English and Arabic. Expected things with expected answers. My name, nationality, date of birth, family sponsor. The response for my occupation, however, was anything but natural.
Housewife.
According to the dictionary, a housewife is:
a woman whose main occupation is caring for her family, managing household affairs, and doing housework, while her husband or partner does paid work.
This doesn’t sound like anything I set out to do with my life. Not one part appeals to me, unless me and my spouse were both contributing to the financial, physical, and emotional state of the household, such as we did in Colorado.
I AM NOT disparaging housewives. Who am I to judge the decisions someone makes for themselves? Whatever you choose for your life, whatever you want to do, you do you. And honestly, is there a role more difficult and thankless than that of a homemaker? But as someone who has questioned and rejected the patriarchy since I was a kid, wondering, why my mother, aunt, and grandmother prepared (for weeks), cooked, and cleaned up after our gigantic, multicourse Christmas Eve festivities, while the men sat around relaxing with cigarettes and beers, this was the ultimate kick to the uterus.
Mesh and I did get a good chuckle—and we continue to laugh—at my new designation, and I’ve joked about it with my mother and several friends. Someone even questioned why it doesn’t say writer instead. “You’re a published author. Doesn’t that count?”
Not until I start writing for local publications it doesn’t, and this has given me another goal to work towards. But I don’t want to digress, so for now, let’s stick to me being a housewife.
Now that we are settling into our new apartment, I’ve gotten back into a routine, one that leaves me feeling grounded, accomplished, and fulfilled. Win win win!
Mornings start with a cup of coffee, some mild house tidying, like dishes, laundry, and bed making, and a long walk with the dog. I follow that up with more coffee and writing time. Hours of typing at my computer and I need to move again, so it’s time to exercise. Our community gym is about a hundred yards from our apartment, and there’s a small grocery store nearby, which I stop at following nearly every workout, picking up what I plan to cook for dinner.
Yes, since moving here, I have taken up cooking. Mesh, who would make the most formidable competitor on a home chef competition, has stated more than once that he, for now, is “retired from cooking,” and I’ve assumed that role. I will never make meals as precise, delicious, or as complicated as he doues, but I learned I really don’t mind it and I am getting better.
By then it’s usually early afternoon, dedicated to phone calls, managing various service providers, and shopping. Anything, really, that our household needs. Another shorter outing with Huey Lewis. Preparing dinner. I clean as I cook, so dishes after dinner aren’t too much of a project.
And that’s a workday in my life, Monday through Friday.
Okay. Okay. Okay. I begrudgingly admit, my day-to-day routine as a fulltime writer sounds suspiciously like I am part housewife. And I have come to accept it. Here’s why.
At the beginning of December, the UAE celebrates their National Day holiday and Mesh has a few days off from work. Other than spring Phish Tour, Mesh hasn’t had a single vacation this year, so we are taking advantage of the mini break to travel. Our original plan was to road trip to Oman, but Mesh remembered last Monday he has less than 6 months valid on his passport, meaning Oman won’t let us in. At the last minute, we had to pivot to a country with more lenient passport rules, limiting our options, yet somehow leaving us with an exquisite plan B. The East African tropical paradise of the Seychelles.
After a few days of research, we were ready to lock our plans in. Thursday night, while Mesh secured our flights and accommodations, I reserved ferries and completed our required travel authorization. It was only while filling out the latter on the Seychelles official government website I noticed a major problem. Once I entered our travel dates, airline, and airport of origin, a dropdown menu of flight numbers, of which I was to choose ours, populated. Except our flight number wasn’t an option.
Because, it turns out, Mesh booked our final destination to the wrong country. Instead of landing on Mahe, the largest island in the Seychelles, we were flying to Male, capitol city of the Maldives.
Same same, but oh so very different.
Thank goodness we were able to rectify the mistake within minutes and I completed the travel authorization with our new flight number the first choice on the dropdown.
But Mesh’s error, one my poor attention to detail would make ten times over his laser sharp focus, points to how burnt out my husband, the smartest and funniest person I know, is. We learned in early February that this Abu Dhabi relocation was happening and Mesh immediately began his rotations, traveling back and forth between the US and the UAE every 3 weeks until permanently settling in Abu Dhabi in early July. Here, among his team of approximately twenty expated colleagues, Mesh is a one man band, juggling from one instrument to the next. In this foundational phase, most of them are.
Rare is the day he doesn’t work at least 12 hours. Save for when he’s sleeping, he takes calls at all times. Jumps into meetings when he should be eating dinner or enjoying a weekend when we’re out of town. A perfectionist (and a Virgo), the man has no concept of a work life balance. He is drowning.
And it is only because we moved here that I can realize my professional writing dreams. On account of this (and so much more), I have no problem taking on the obligations of managing our household. It’s not about the type of work I’m doing, but about being a caring partner. And when it comes to our quality of life and the division of labor, I’m also trying to be as equitable as possible, though I am definitely not (far from) taking on an equal share. And so I will cook and clean, and make all the calls and organize, and be Huey’s primary caretaker if it means I can keep Mesh’s out-of-work life as easy and stress free as it can be.
The only thing I ask is for a title change. Can’t I be labeled a house manager instead?
