I didn't realize how truly burned out I was until the week school started after New Year's. I felt like I had been running on that hamster wheel of motherhood, moving my legs so quickly with no where to really go, and I was finally at the point where I was exhausted. Exhausted and bitter. A month before I had requested the weekend of January 16th off because it coincided with the Hubbs birthday, but of course I had almost forgotten about that by the time it got here. I realized that I was at a point where I just wanted to be quiet. I wanted to be left alone. I wanted to sleep.
Really, I just needed most was to recharge.
I had big plans for my four day weekend. I was going to write and blog. I was going to catch up on all my favorite TV shows. I was going to read all three of my new books. I was going to do laundry and grocery shop and be lazy and not wear any make up. Big plans for doing what I wanted to do, for doing what I need to do, but then something kind of amazing happened.
I didn't really do any of them. I sat on the couch with the Hubbs and watched some pretty great movies and TV shows. Not the ones piled up on the DVR, but whatever we found while sitting there together. I held my baby, who will be five this year, in my lap while I read that one book she wants to read every single night. I held her hand, that is still so impossibly small, and knew that this wouldn't be forever. And I had to take a moment to embrace it, to recognize that time doesn't stop moving forward.
I laid on the floor of my bathroom while the girls painted my toe nails. Making a mess of the bathroom and me. Because they had been begging to do it for months, and I had plum run out of excuses. I knew they would make a mess. I knew that at some point one of them would spill polish that would never come out of the cream colored bathroom rug. I knew that eventually one of the girls would spill the polish remover all over the floor. I expected to have polish all over my toe nails and feet. But what I didn't expect was how much they would enjoy making this mess. How much fun they would have talking to me like I was a "Client".
Do you have children? Would you like to pick a color Miss? Where do you work? I never expected to lay in the floor and relax, taking in the deep breath of motherhood and ignoring the smell of polish and acetone, while my hostesses pampered and prepped. I didn't realize that all they wanted their mother to do was to slow down and say yes. Yes to making mess. Yes to ruining a ten year old bath mat that had seen better days. Yes to being one hundred and ten percent in the moment.
It will come as no surprise that I didn't do one stitch of writing. That I opened my laptop maybe once. That I put my phone down for most of those days. Only picking it up to take pictures of the little memories we were making of the mundane. If I would have asked, they would have let me. Let me write in the corner of the kitchen table, at the bar, or even in our office. They would have let me shut the door and listen to Pandora, and get a pretty good chunk of writing done for me and this blog. But I didn't ask. I just let it go. I just let it be. I wanted to take the time I was given and enjoy every drop. To be with my girls and take selfies of us being alive. Of us breathing. Of us relaxing because Mommy didn't have to work for four whole days and nights.
When the staycation ended and we went back to real life, I was quite a bit behind. I wrote a few things, but before I knew it, I felt rushed all over again. I don't want to feel rushed. I don't want to ignore one life for the other. So I did what I should have been doing for years. Let go. Release some of the guilt and let life be my guide. Does it really matter that I have a list of things to write about? Does it matter that I'm reading two books at the same time with no desire to finish either? Does it really matter that we are knee deep in life again with laundry and dishes waiting at the ready? It doesn't, not really. It took a vacation from the obligations for me to realize that I really need to enjoy what really matters, living the life I've always wanted. This life right here.
Honestly, it's been staring me in the face this whole time, and it's finally time time to pay attention.
