Everyone talks about the work \ life balance but it's so much more than that. It's the balance in EVERYTHING.
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| photo credit: jam343 via photopin cc |
For the first 6 years of having children I very rarely went for a night out, and when I did I spent most of my time panicking about them. Now I don't think I could have stopped that if I wanted to (at times I really did want to), but I don't think it was necessarily very healthy. Other people encouraged me to go out more but if you can't let go and enjoy yourself and spend half the night with a knot in your stomach and the other half checking your phone - what's the point really? And on those rare occasions that I did actually manage to throw caution to the wind (and lets be honest here it was only through my good friend alcohol), I still had to get up in the middle of the night for the inevitable cry out from one of the three children, and then again at 6am for the first riser, and then spent most of the day with my head in a toilet calling with mock cheeriness 'It's ok darling, Mummy will be out in a minute!' So yeah, probably not as easy as it sounds to 'just go out and have a good time'.
However....
Now that I have one weekend night free every week I have the choice of either sitting at home on my tobler, or going out and having fun with friends. And well, it would be rude not to really. The children are safely tucked up in their Dad's house so there's no point in worrying about them, plus....drumroll....I get to sleep off the hangover in the morning! I finally have a balance of being there for my children but also getting a little of the non-mum me back again.
Balance.
And it's not just that - I'm healthier than I have been in a long time too. Instead of spending every spare hour working, drumming up work, stressing about work or pretending to work I've grabbed some of those wasted hours and am spending time running, doing yoga, swimming....and it feels great.
Balance.
Off the back of that my food choices have become healthier, but again - without being all boot camp about it. Chocolate, cake, and chocolate cake are still most definitely on the menu (and did I mention the booze? I promise I'm not going all health freaky on you).
Balance.
So that's food, health, kids, friends and work sorted, and so there is just one thing that still has to be tackled, the trickiest thing of all to get right - the bank balance.
Anyone have the answer to that one?
