I had the afternoon off on Sunday and it was awesome! At first my plan was to work at home but that never works – even though Ian is on point it’s still “Mommy, can we have snack?” “Ask daddy!” “Mommy, can you fix this?” “Ask daddy!!” “Mommy…” “ASK DADDY!!!”

The other problem of course is that if I’m at home with the rest of my work I feel like I should be doing that. A change of scenery was in order, so I packed up my computer and walked downtown to spend the afternoon at our local coffee shop.

Ian had plans for the afternoon with the kids and my instructions were to do whatever I wanted and come home whenever I wanted, so I did – and for once I didn’t feel guilty about it!

Because that’s the problem with us moms, isn’t it? We have so much expected of us, and expect so much more of ourselves, that even if we ask or if people offer to take some of it off us, we can’t enjoy that freedom because we’re too busy either feeling guilty that we’re not doing it or worrying that they won’t do it right.

When I do have a “break” I spend the time counting down to when I have to go back to “reality”, worrying about how Ian and the kids are doing, feeling that I’m shirking my “duties”, and imagining the disaster I’ll find when I get home. And in the back of my mind there is always the nagging thought that it would have been easier not to go at all.

This time I let go – of guilt, of responsibility, of worry – and I sat and enjoyed my time. I didn’t even order a coffee for an hour because I didn’t want to waste my time off standing in line. I kept thinking, “No worries; I’ll just go up when the crowd dies down.” I sat and worked on my blog – something that is just for me, and I did it because it was what I wanted to do.

I’ve been feeling a bit off lately. I had been assuring myself and Ian and everyone else I talked to about it that I was pretty sure it was not the depression, just physical symptoms – like a tight, sore jaw, difficulty sleeping, and headaches – that were making me tired and irritable. I went to the doctor to ask if it could be side-effects from my medication and if I should decrease my dose. He said no, it sounded like the symptoms were caused by my stress, not the other way around, and that maybe increasing the dose would help. “Huh,” said I, thinking about some wise words written recently by Honest Mom, and I did it and I’ll be damned if it didn’t work.

“Keep Calm and Blog” mug and “Sometimes all you need is a cup of coffee and a reality check.”

Between the dose increase, the awesome day off, and some other cool stuff going on that maybe I’ll get into in a later post, things is looking up and I’m feeling more like me old self again. And I’m sleeping better, even with Miss Molly waking up at 3:00 AM crying for crackers.

~ karyn