Things moms have time for 💁🏻♀️
(curling my hair or being on time, but not both)
My “me time” consists of about 9-10 pm every night. After 10:00 pm, I consider it “I should be sleeping but I’m not” time, which is very different than “me time,” because there’s a layer of guilt (for staying awake) and dread (of my 5:30 am alarm).
Often, me time is slowly eclipsed by things like tidying up the kitchen, putting away the laundry, schedule-sending a response to that email I didn’t get to earlier, finally heating up leftovers for dinner, and so on. So really, me time is often about 18 minutes, where I finally sit down to do that thing I’ve really wanted to do (right now: shop for a new pair of sunglasses, as I regrettably lost my favorites earlier this week), but I am too tired to actually do it. Or enjoy it. So then we move into the above-mentioned “I should be sleeping but I’m not” time, and the cycle continues.
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I guess what I’m trying to say is: like many people with young kids, I don’t have a lot of time on my hands. That said, here are a few things I do have time for:
Finally responding to your text, hours or days (or a lifetime) after you sent it
OR, using my 18 minutes of me-time to respond to a message promptly and actually catch up with someone
Tidying and decluttering but not deep cleaning often enough
Setting out nail polish to paint my nails on Sunday night but not doing it until 3 to 7 days after that
Play a round of Go Fish instead of getting out the Play-Doh (ugh, Play-Doh)
Crafting a cute list rather than a full think piece for my biweekly Substack post 😀
Quickly typing tasks and ideas into my Notes app so I don’t forget them, which then leaves me with random lists by the end of the day like:
Check toll charges
Call hotel
Sunglasses?
Conclave!
Abercrombie sale?
Not checking those toll charges for at least another week
Reading about 6 pages of a book (during “should be sleeping” time) before instantly falling asleep and not waking up until my 4-year-old calls for us to help her get a drink of water at 2:00 am.
Curling my hair or being on time, but not both
But not both (and that’s okay) is kind of my mantra for this season of life. I am constantly working to do less, rest more. In fact, I’m trying to shift my understanding of rest, to see it as a responsibility rather than something I can totally squish into about 6 hours (after reading those 6 pages of my book).
But not both, because I’m going to rest. But not both, because I’m going to do something I enjoy. But not both, because I know my bandwidth right now. But not both, and that’s okay.
📓 If you enjoyed reading this, you might also like: Embrace the mess: literally, no thank you
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But not both is such a good mantra, I need to adopt this.
Hahaha I feel so seen. Thank you for sharing Courtney! Too relatable xD