Ask almost any mother what she misses most from her life before children and she is likely to say time to herself – “me time “ as it has been rather unimaginatively dubbed. What did we do with all that time before we realised how precious it was. Saturday afternoons spent watching “Brookside” omnibus and “Blind Date” because I couldn’t think of anything else to do. Whole afternoons pottering around markets. Hours spent on the phone, after 6 of course, to friends that I had only just seen.
However ,when it was just me and then just us I still thought I had no time to do anything and was always chasing my tail. Busyness is all relative to how much time you have.
Whilst the amount of time my children allow me to pursue my own thoughts grows with each passing year, the start of school for my youngest will be a turning point. I will have daily time to myself indefinitely.
“What will you do with yourself?” If I had a pound…”Will you go back to work?” How does anyone achieve that? Unless you are a GP or work for a local authority it is nigh on impossible. The school day itself is deceptively short – just half a day in working terms. Then there are the holidays – 13 weeks or so. Finally the endless time off for chicken pox, sickness bugs, Nativity plays etc. Multiply that by four and you start to see how incredibly difficult it would be. I am in the hugely fortunate position to have a choice and so for the time being I choose not to.
That leads me back to the first question. What will I do?
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