Looking after ME ...

The image of a battery, running out of power has been appearing a lot on my FB feed, from many different sources over the past few weeks and months.  I have no idea who originally posted it, but it really does / has made me think about how much time I fence off for 'me' amongst everything else.  

The honest answer is, probably not enough, and that was definitely the case over the previous 5 years.

Looking after me was at the bottom of the priority list.  

When my LG was born, pretty much everyone kept going on about how important it was for me to look after her, to make sure she was OK, ... she was fed, changed, clean, dry ... few people said the same thing about looking after me though.

In fact, in some cases the exact opposite was true, with people focussing on how much time I would be spending away from my LG whenever I went to do something for me, rather than encouraging me to take the time to look after me.

This was exascerbated by the fact that I had returned to work 'part-time' (well, I was employed part-time, and that's all that people counted).  

This led to repeated statements along the lines of;

"But you only work part-time, you've got more time in the daytime for you."

"Oh yes, but you can have a break when XX is back at work once you're home from your holiday."

"But you finish work at 3, you've had 3 hours to relax before X comes home."

In the end, I felt that every second that I spent on me, was time I should have been spending on others.  Time I should be spending with my LG, or doing things that were essentially for 'us' as a family, faciliatating everyone else to do what they wanted / needed to do for them, but not me.  I arranged visits to family to make everyone else's life easier - but not mine.  

It took me a long time to realise that if I didn't make time for me, the rest of life didn't work either.  That I didn't need to feel guilty about taking time out of making sure that everyone else is OK. 

What I do know, is that we all need time to do things for ourselves sometimes.  Whatever that may be.  Sometimes, it's as simple as curling up with a book, othertimes it could be a trip to meet up with friends, or a night at the cinema.  

It doesn't really matter what it is, as long as it works for us, for me.  The important thing is that we take it, that we don't shove it at the bottom of the 'to-do' list whre we never get to it ... and that we make sure that we give those around us the chance to take that time too.